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Titans of Industrial Agriculture: How a Few Giant Corporations Came to Dominate the Farm Sector and Why It Matters
How a small handful of giant transnational corporations has come to dominate the farm inputs sector, why it matters, and what can be done about it.
Every year, hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of farm machinery, fertilizers, seeds, and pesticides are sold to farmers around the world. Although agricultural inputs are a huge sector of the global economy, the lion’s share of that market is controlled by a relatively small number of very large transnational corporations. The high degree of concentration among these agribusiness titans is striking, considering that just a few hundred years ago agricultural inputs were not even marketed goods. In Titans of Industrial Agriculture, Jennifer Clapp explains how we got from there to here, outlining the forces that enabled this extreme concentration of power and the entrenchment of industrial agriculture.
Clapp reveals that the firms that rose to the top of these sectors benefited from distinct market, technology, and policy advantages dating back a century or more that enabled them to expand their businesses through mergers and acquisitions that made them even bigger and more powerful. These dynamics matter because the firms at the top have long shaped industrial farming practices that, in turn, have generated enormous social, ecological, and health impacts on the planet and the future of food systems. Beyond analyzing how these problems have arisen and manifested, the book examines recent efforts to address corporate power and dominance in food systems and assesses the prospects for change.
Among the first works to examine deep roots of corporate power in agriculture, Titans of Industrial Agriculture helps illuminate just how corporate actors have encouraged the “lock-in” of industrial agriculture, despite all its known social and ecological costs.
Every year, hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of farm machinery, fertilizers, seeds, and pesticides are sold to farmers around the world. Although agricultural inputs are a huge sector of the global economy, the lion’s share of that market is controlled by a relatively small number of very large transnational corporations. The high degree of concentration among these agribusiness titans is striking, considering that just a few hundred years ago agricultural inputs were not even marketed goods. In Titans of Industrial Agriculture, Jennifer Clapp explains how we got from there to here, outlining the forces that enabled this extreme concentration of power and the entrenchment of industrial agriculture.
Clapp reveals that the firms that rose to the top of these sectors benefited from distinct market, technology, and policy advantages dating back a century or more that enabled them to expand their businesses through mergers and acquisitions that made them even bigger and more powerful. These dynamics matter because the firms at the top have long shaped industrial farming practices that, in turn, have generated enormous social, ecological, and health impacts on the planet and the future of food systems. Beyond analyzing how these problems have arisen and manifested, the book examines recent efforts to address corporate power and dominance in food systems and assesses the prospects for change.
Among the first works to examine deep roots of corporate power in agriculture, Titans of Industrial Agriculture helps illuminate just how corporate actors have encouraged the “lock-in” of industrial agriculture, despite all its known social and ecological costs.
- GenresFood
474 pages, Paperback
Published February 18, 2025
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April 5, 2025
This is a book I wish I had read at the start of my career, when I was trying to understand the Ag-tech sector, and realising when it came to inputs, there was only a handful of companies doing anything.
The book goes right back to, and explores, the birth of the seed, crop protection and machinery industries and chronologise all the new entrants and mergers which led to our current, highly concentrated system. While this can be quite arduous in parts (the author recommends skipping chapters if you have a particular interests), it is important to understand that our current state is not unique in history and to quote Pearl S. Buck 'If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday'
The sections on R&D are really interesting and Jennifer Clapp makes the well argued case that the current systems actually de-incentivises R&D outside of a few commercial motivated activities. This is counterintuitive as one would normally assume larger companies would be more likely to spend substantive amounts of money on R&D. This partially explains how despite the massive promise and hype in the 80's of Genetic Modification, 30 years later we only really have two use cases (worth remembering in our current A.I hype cycle ), .
My one gripe with the book is it doesn't really address the massive yield gains industrial agriculture has enabled, and instead focused on the significant environmental and social cost. Throughout the book 'Big Ag' is painted as the enemy , for many well argued reasons, but the only alternative offered is agroecology (a famously vague term) and with no like for like comparison of yield.
The book goes right back to, and explores, the birth of the seed, crop protection and machinery industries and chronologise all the new entrants and mergers which led to our current, highly concentrated system. While this can be quite arduous in parts (the author recommends skipping chapters if you have a particular interests), it is important to understand that our current state is not unique in history and to quote Pearl S. Buck 'If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday'
The sections on R&D are really interesting and Jennifer Clapp makes the well argued case that the current systems actually de-incentivises R&D outside of a few commercial motivated activities. This is counterintuitive as one would normally assume larger companies would be more likely to spend substantive amounts of money on R&D. This partially explains how despite the massive promise and hype in the 80's of Genetic Modification, 30 years later we only really have two use cases (worth remembering in our current A.I hype cycle ), .
My one gripe with the book is it doesn't really address the massive yield gains industrial agriculture has enabled, and instead focused on the significant environmental and social cost. Throughout the book 'Big Ag' is painted as the enemy , for many well argued reasons, but the only alternative offered is agroecology (a famously vague term) and with no like for like comparison of yield.
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