Investigate Midwest - As ag consolidation grows, Harris and Trump pitch different approaches

Food systems program manager Claire Kelloway is quoted advocating for stronger antitrust enforcement and the Packers and Stockyards Act to curb corporate consolidation in the meat industry.

"There's various levels of exclusive dealing, commercial bribery, predatory marketing practices and advantages that large companies have."

At Investigate Midwest, we dig deeper to bring you the facts behind agriculture, climate change, and policy decisions affecting rural America and beyond.

In 1994, Greg Gunthorp's father warned him and his wife against buying the family sow herd and breeding stock. The market was basically over for the independent producers, his father told him. The price of a pig sold on the commodities market in the mid-1990s went for less than what Gunthorp's grandfather received during the Great Depression.

But Gunthorp, who lives in Northeast Indiana in LaGrange County, made it work as an independent pig farmer, selling to restaurants throughout the Midwest and through internet sales to consumers who want to know where their meat comes from.

However, due to the continued consolidation of the meat industry, Gunthorp said big companies are now starting to encroach into this territory.

"We're kind of at the same place today that we were in 1998," he said. "The big guys have moved into this space with predatory pricing and deceptive marketing, and all of the same kinds of practices that we've seen in the commodity market have invaded the (independent) wholesale space."

Read full article here.