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 SecurityThis 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.

Bandmasters of Raju and Munna Band - Corporate initiated, contract farming experts, sometimes remind me of the bandmasters of the wedding / barat bands in the small mofussil towns of Bihar, and sometimes, of the divine experts, who can sniff and tell the farmer, where to start drilling, for the best likelihood of drawing water at the most convenient depth in the rocky plateau ground.
Needless to say, the farmer is paying on a daily basis, for the expensive drilling equipment, and for the retinue of drilling labour, engineers, managers and water diviners that turns up, and knows very well - it is still undoubtedly his own fate, which will determine his success in drawing water at 50 metres or at 300 metres.
The farmer dares not question the professional competence, of this large retinue of water diviners, or ask for a simple written agreement, of, at what depth, water will be struck. Pay us, watch us, do your bit, and pay us more, will be the likely answer, even as the farmer, tries to hide, his ignorance, of the nuances of modern farming, his cultural illiteracy and lack of modern scientific knowledge in the presence of the confident master weavers of invisible cloth.
The retired, army Brigadiers and Colonels, who make up the Human Resources and farming division bosses, of the corporate charge into Indian contract farming, are no doubt, candid, realistic and earthy people. They do preface, their farm prescriptions, for Indian farmers, with the disclosure, that the Tata Rallis, ITC or Reliance companies, that they represent and get a fat salary from, are really not attempting any convoluted attempt at altruism or have completely charitable motives. Jokingly they ask the doubtful farmers to put on a brave face and proudly join in - "Jai jawan, Jai kisan" in unison with the earthy retired brigadier or colonel, and get to work in earnest. No room for doubting Thomases on Indian contract farming platter.
They know in modern India, the jawan is heading towards UN Security Council and global peace keeping operations, while the kisan is headed towards the blind alley of an undeclared exit policy, while the government cheers on the new marriages being made on the farm lands.
They do twirl their moustaches and with a private smile say, at best, they hope, that contract farming between the corporate and Indian farmer, will not be as exploitative, as that between, Indian government and the Indian farmer who is at the mercy of all and sundry.
Corporate shareholders, they say, will be just slightly better friends of the farmers, than the Indian politicians and government. We are in it for mutual benefit, and shall walk away if the whole thing does not make business sense. The farmer will of course get his land back.
Privately, these retired army brass - captains, colonels and brigadiers, who venture into contract farming after early retirement, also mention, that they have consulted extensively, with batteries of legal experts, while drawing up the exact wording of the contract farming contracts that the farmers are "requested" to put their thumb to. The lawyers get their share of the farmers misery too.
It is the public relations whizz kids, media writers with journalistic aspiration, and fresh management grads, and media experts sitting in Mumbai, who draft the press releases, who start painting the scenario of emperor's new clothes for the naked emperor, in real earnest.
They seem to go overboard in their enthusiasm in "selecting" the 400 or so odd, "extremely lucky" diligent farmers, with whom the company will sign an experimental contract.
And like that bandmaster, in the Bihar mofussil town, they tell each farmer, the same story that the band master tells all his shagirds, whom he has taken under his fold. "Munna, tera music mein bahut talent hai, tu to 50-100 shadi me band baja kar seedhe Mumbai nikal jaana, wahan par meri jaan pahchan ke kuch film music director hain". The poor Munna, delightedly but a bit warily, agrees to joining the band master in the fond hope, that one day, he will become the next Himesh Reshamayyia that Mumbai film industry, has all along been waiting for. He begins to imagine himself as leading big teams of musical band orchestra and giving final touches to popular lilting tunes for the Indian masses ... mere desh ki dharti sona ugle, ugle heere moti, mere desh ki dharti....
He brings out the dozen odd songs as well, that he wrote on the side, and hopes they too, will make it to the top of T-Series charts. ...Raja ki aayegi baraat, rangeelee hogi raat, magan main naachoongi....
One really wonders, why the corporate farming bandmasters and contract farming experts, even bother, to select 400 or so, illiterate, debt laden, traditional farmers, when these contract farming experts, can just acquire dirt cheap, farm land, from distressed farmers, and train 400 of their own youth, with tractor driving licenses, and set them up to farm and till for them ?
Maybe they just feel it is their patriotic duty to respond to the call of Shri Singh and Mr Chidambaram for private sector to generously invest in rural infrastructure and Indian agriculture ?
There is afterall, no shortage of unemployed, eager, tie clad, white shirted, and smart manpower in India, looking for jobs in Tata, ITC and Reliance. And of course, the seeds, the fertilizers, the pesticides, the water drilling technologies, the herbicides, the biotechnology access to wonderful organic and GM seeds, financial loans, latest technological inputs, storage and fumigating technologies, global marketing muscle, advertising reach - all these inputs can come from inhouse itself.
Vertical integration and competitive advantage, is what this is called in management schools lingo.
What SWOT Analysis about Indian farmers is occurring in the Indian Agriculture and Commerce Ministry is beyond my comprehension.
Afterall, these are the production inputs, that made the agricultural gadget makers, rich in the first place. And who knows better, as to how to take farm produce, from farm to fork, with fewest middlemen ? Can anybody ever beat ITC, Reliance or Rallis in the logistics of transporting fresh food from farms to urban markets ?
Why is the farmer asked to tuck up his dhoti, become the essential middleman, and put his dirty thumb to the spick and span, contract farming contract, and elaborate legal documents ?
No shortage of intelligent swindlers, stiching wonderful clothes, of a wonderful but invisible to the eye, material, for the " naked emperoror " of Indian farm fields - the farmer.

Food policy pundits, are busy these days, telling everyone that the solution to Indian farmer suicides, lies not in financial imprudence, a.k.a., farmer loans write off, but, in the farmers being persuaded to embrace contract farming, as the essential basic producers, who will somehow, fit into, the retail and corporate sector strategies, of food, "from the farm to the fork". They say, the Indian government should continue on the strategy, of subsidizing corporate and industrial infrastructure, and drop the policy of Indira Gandhi, that underlay the Green Revolution and the motive of food self sufficiency, that underpinned it.
Commodities futures trading, crop diversifications, horticulture, cut flowers for European markets, organic nomenclature, rural food processing units, you name it, they have enough solutions to how the farmer can save his body, even if he has to sell off his soul to the devil.
Of course, it is the same farm pundits, who can not tell the difference between one weed growing on a plot of land from another, or will entertain the idea, of forced farm conscription for their own children. Nor do they have any answers, why wheat is being imported from global markets at much higher prices, while the dumb Indian farmer is told, that he must attend kisan chaupals, to learn how to protect his crop from pests, and help in the dismantling of the food storage godowns of FCI.
The same farm pundits, are hoping that somehow, the lack of options, that the Indian farmer has from his own government, will effectively seal him and sandwich him, into accepting the role of "contracted producer" in the new regime, of food super markets and convenience shopping retail chains, for an urban, and maybe urbane, middle class.
A band of contract farming management experts, is taking shape, again, manned by the people, who will scoff at the very idea, of their own children being forced to till the land, even if only for purely academic purposes, and make a living from farming in the modern India.
Farming by conscription, is of course, unthinkable in democratic India for the children of the urban and urbane, farm pundits. But somehow, farmers are essentially doing that. In return, they get the sheer luxury of voting for either Ajit Singh, Mayawati or Mulayam Singh, once every five years, and derogatory labels like kulaks and illiterate peasants.
Tikait and the tractors of the Jat kulaks crowding the spick and span RajPath is a detestable sight of course for these concerned "friends of farmers".
Join the band wagon of sewing fantastic invisible clothes, for the naked emperor.