BUTLER/CUNNINGHAM

This site will change from time to time. Basic organization will remain constant.

click here to contact Mike Polioudakis, site developer

polioej@acesag.auburn.edu

Level 2

US Ag Facts:

Coroporations

Selection of Similar Pages

Dr. Robert Taylor of Auburn University has researched the role of corporations in modern agriculture. He is critical, as he believes that corporations are moving agriculture away from a free market with many independent producers towards a structured market, controlled by suppliers, buyers, and processors, where farmers will be subordinate contractors.

The first button to the left goes to a brief summary of the talk given by Dr. Taylor at the 2003 BC conference. The second button to the left goes to a long PowerPoint presentation by Dr. Taylor from the 2003 BC conference. The third button goes to an index of how much the agriculture market is structured, and by which corporations. Economists generally consider any market in which four or fewer companies control 50% or more of a market no longer to be a free market.

Dr. William Heffernan, formerly of the University of Missouri but now retired, shares similar fears about the growing role of corporations in agriculture. The button to the left goes to summary of his talk at the 2003 BC conference, prepared by Mike Polioudakis rather than by him. It includes a list of structured markets and the major coroporations that exert control. It also gives a web site where Dr. Heffernan's views, and those of his reseach group, are presented. He did not leave any summaries or visuals.