World Food Day: end corporate stranglehold over food systems

The latest report by UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Michael Fakhri reveals that corporate power in food systems has become so concentrated that a small group of companies now shape what is grown, how it is grown, working conditions in food production and what consumers pay – prioritizing profit maximization over the public good.

The report – which cites submissions from FIAN International – calls for urgent action to curtail corporate power over food systems, ensure fair and stable food markets, and hold corporations accountable for human rights violations.

Land concentration

It shows how corporate dominance of food systems is driving hunger, inequality, and environmental destruction – with land grabbing by transnational corporations at the heart of the crisis.

This was highlighted in FIAN’s report with Focus on the Global South “Lords of the Land: Transnational Landowners, Inequality and the Case for Redistribution”, which exposed the growing power of the world’s ten largest transnational landowners who control a staggering 40.4 million hectares – an area roughly the size of Japan.

“The concentration of land in corporate hands is both a driver and symptom of a broken food system,” said Philip Seufert, co-author of the report.

“Our research shows virtually all of the world’s largest landowners have been linked to land grabbing, human rights abuses and violations, and environmental destruction. Redistributive land and fiscal policies are essential for realizing the right to food and achieving climate justice.”

Unprecedented concentration of power

The Special Rapporteur’s report details how just four firms control more than half of the global commercial seed market and more than 60 percent of the pesticide market, while corporate concentration extends across the entire food system.

It also highlights how global price hikes reflect high concentration of suppliers’ market power, with transnational corporations raising prices beyond increased costs to hide profiteering. Meanwhile, corporations create demand for ultra-processed products through marketing strategies disproportionately targeting minorities, disadvantaged groups, and children.

“Corporate power over food systems has reached unprecedented levels. Our food systems have become dangerously dependent on corporations, granting them a dominant power that undermines food sovereignty and captures decision-making spaces that should belong to the people.

“This corporate concentration of power makes our food systems extremely fragile and bound to the interests of the agrifood industry. This is having devastating consequences for people and the planet,” says Ana Maria Suarez Franco, Secretary General of FIAN International.

While corporations accumulate vast territories and extract enormous wealth, more than 700 million people go hungry and over 2 billion face food insecurity. This is not a failure of the food system. It is the predictable outcome of an economic system that rewards the rich and privileged while penalizing the poor and marginalized people.

Legal tools

The Special Rapporteur recommends that states use corporate law to regulate corporations, employ all legal tools to curtail corporate power, and commit to finalizing negotiations on a legally binding instrument to regulate transnational corporations. The report also calls for redistributive agrarian reforms, progressive taxation, and greater support for peasants, Indigenous Peoples, fisherfolk and rural communities.

FIAN fully endorses the Special Rapporteur’s recommendations. It is time for governments to commit to dismantling corporate control over food systems and prioritize human rights, food sovereignty, and agroecology.

For more information please contact Philip Seufert seufert@fian.org