The Food Industry

This week blog post will talk about the food that we consume, the industries that produce them and many more topics. The passage below is just about the food industry.

The food Industry has for long time been an oddity that has been so quiet when it comes to influencing agricultural policy. Of course some industry groups have made their position known on certain aspects of agricultural legislation, but all analytical treatments of the politics of agricultural policy and agricultural trade have focused on the influence of the farm lobby and their supporters in legislatures. By contrast, consumer interests are considered weak and diffused and hence rarely get much political attention. Farm policy anomalies, such as the massive transfers made to a relatively few small businesses from consumers or taxpayers, are explained in terms of the over-representation of the rural vote, the identification of political interest with production rather than consumption activities, political support of the rural population or sympathy for what is perceived as a poor and more backward sector. The food industry fits awkwardly in these explanations. They are both the processors and distributors of the output from farms and also the consumers of most farm goods as raw materials into some form of processing activity. Are the food companies extensions of the farm sector, and hence “on the side” of the producer, or are they the substitute consumer, acting on behalf of families who do not buy direct from the farm? Or are they merely “neutral” negotiators with no particular views on policy other than to see the food chain function. One can make a case that the food processing industry, along with the suppliers of inputs have generally been supportive of producer groups in the past. Some of the parts of the food industry near the consumer end of the chain have staked out somewhat different positions. But the identification of the industry with producer interests have been the dominant trait. The driving notion behind this paper is that the set of changes which are often grouped together as “globalization” is shifting the food sector from a relatively passive friend of the producer to a potential vital ally for the consumer. Before attempting to explain why such a change might be taking place, consider the possible consequences of such a move for farm policies and for agricultural trade policies. The producer-bias which has been universally noted for the industrial countries seems itself to rest on the inactivity of the food sector. A more aggressive food processing industry could conceivably reshape the politics of agriculture. Of course the farm lobby would remain, but a food processing industry that used its political skill to counter that of the farm groups could potentially prevail. This could have a dramatic impact on the evolution of farm policy, particularly in Japan and the European Union. For the sake of laying out the argument in as transparent a way as possible, the case for the growing significance of the food industry is expressed in this paper as ten propositions. Each is empirical in content, though no organized quantitative evidence is given. Any evidence assembled is unreliable or to some degree extensive.