Pharmaceutical Companies and Food Sector

Communities Versus Pharmaceutical Conglomerates -
How Food Became a Casualty of Biotechnology's Promise :

Pharmaceutical conglomerates are using the agricultural sector, to underwrite their research and development efforts as they work to transform plants and animals into drug and organ factories to further their profits.

This experiment, unprecedented in human history, masquerades as a humanitarian effort directed toward growing more food and feeding more people. How Food Became a Casualty of Biotechnology's Promise, available at www.oaklandinstitute.org, exposes how food is merely the conduit through which the pharmaceutical conglomerates hope to develop and monopolize the basic technologies that promise profits far exceeding any imaginable from high-yielding crops bearing vitamin-fortified food.

Read the Press Release - Download the Policy Brief -
About Michael Heimbinder, Oakland Institute Fellow and Author of the Policy Brief
- Courtesy : Oakland Institute, International Forum on Globalization

Food Retail Chain - Food Logistics

Consolidated Control of Food Chain
Oakland Institute USA, has released a New Policy Brief Reveals that Consolidated Control of Food Leads to Declining Food Security, Economic Health, and Labor Standards :

Facing Goliath : Challenging the Impacts of Retail Consolidation on our Local Economies, Communities, and Food Security
This new policy brief from the Oakland Institute exposes how corporate consolidation in food retail has put our access to a reliable supply of healthy and affordable food at risk.

The top five food retailers, which now control more than half of all grocery sales in the country, have gained unprecedented market power," said Katy Mamen, Oakland Institute Fellow and author of the Policy Brief. "As a result, cost savings garnered through increased bargaining power are generally not being passed on to the consumer, supermarkets are abandoning low-income communities where profit margins are lower, and labor standards are being forced down."

The shift from small and medium scale food stores to big box stores brings broader economic turmoil for many communities. When a retail mega-store enters a community, independent shops that serve the local community are often forced to close. New Wal-Mart stores in a community have been associated with increased poverty levels and a decline in locally owned and operated businesses.
"In the U.S., the independent business owner is held in high regard - but small businesses throughout the food supply chain, from farmers to processors to grocers are being forced out as consolidation continues, undermining the American Dream," said Mamen.

The Policy Brief teases out the architecture of change in the food supply chain, outlines some of the key impacts on local communities, and suggests strategies for bringing balance back to the food retail landscape, including:

* Developing successful and innovative regional distribution and retail models;

* Re-creating real retail diversity that includes both locally-owned outlets that source a majority of their products locally and products that are direct marketed by producers;

* Fostering locally-owned and operated retail outlets in low-income communities;

* Working to balance the public subsidy and support system, which currently disproportionately favors large supermarket chains over independent markets;

* Raising public awareness about the social, economic and environmental benefits of locally owned and operated grocery stores.

Facing Goliath : Challenging the Impacts of Retail Consolidation on our Local Economies, Communities, and Food Security is a publication of the Oakland Institute, a think tank for research, analysis, and action whose mission is to increase public participation and promote fair debate on critical social, economic, and environmental justice issues.