Monopoly vs. Competition
--Monopoly vs. competition: both may be needed to foster innovation.
--Ample Opportunity for Input: Have your say in antitrust enforcement in agriculture.
John Otte
Published: Apr 7, 2010
The first step in resolving differences of opinion is understanding the differences.
The first public workshop exploring competition issues in agriculture made progress on the latter, but gained little headway on the former. The workshops are sponsored jointly by the U.S. Department of Justice and USDA. The first one was held March 12 in Ankeny, Iowa.
"One of the greatest threats to our economy is the erosion of free competition in our markets," said U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. "We've learned the hard way that re-cessions and long periods of deregulation can foster practices that are anti-competitive and even illegal."
"Is today's agriculture industry suffering from a lack of free and fair competition in the marketplace?" Holder posed. "We know that a growing number of American farmers find it increasingly difficult to survive by doing what they've done for decades. And we've learned that some of them believe the competitive environment may be, at least in part, to blame."
Activist's interpretation
David Kirby, author of a new book entitled, "Animal Factory - The Looming Threat of Industrial Pig, Dairy and Poultry Farms to Humans and the Environment" viewed the At-torney General's words as welcomed by family farm actitvists and dreaded by the large companies that dominate the modern American food chain.
"Consolidation has made it harder for mid-size family farmers to get fair prices for their products and compete on the open market," he said. "Rural communities are often left behind."
Industry innovates
"The fight to win the farmer's business is intense and that has translated to not only more profitable choices for farmers over the past decade, but also more value for farm-ers," said Jim Tobin, Monsanto's Vice President of Industry Affairs.
He noted that Monsanto's early decision to widely license its technology made the company's innovations broadly available to farmers across the country, providing them with another choice as they looked to combat weeds and insects on farm. The company currently licenses its products to independent seed companies as well as its competitors.
"The innovations in biotechnology and breeding have brought not just more choice, but tremendous value to U.S. farmers," explained Tobin, citing third party research that estimates U.S. farmers have realized $20 billion in extra income in one decade from grow-ing biotech corn, soybeans and cotton. "Farmers have utilized these inventions to garner important benefits such as higher yields, pesticide reduction, time-savings and the ability to adopt conservation techniques in their farming operations."
New investments needed
Intellectual property protection is an important part of ensuring that investment in new products continues for all companies, not only in agriculture but also in other critical U.S. sectors. Without that protection, which some view as monopolistic, companies may scale back research and development.
Tobin stressed that stable IP laws and policies provide inventors with incentives to de-velop new technologies as well as protect those technologies for a designated period of time. Upon patent expiration, those inventions are available to interested parties to invest in as they see fit.
He added that the availability of post-patent technologies in agriculture will provide a competitive bench mark for every new technology. “Competition will continue to grow in coming years as the industry prepares for the generic availability of Roundup Ready soy-beans, after 2014,” he said. “Monsanto already has publicly committed to supporting the availability of generic Roundup Ready soybeans in a post-patent environment by main-taining the scientific and export regulatory estate for the trait at least through 2017.”
Enforcement policies will change. “You will see an historic era of enforcement that will almost inevitably grow from the partnership that we have established with USDA,” de-clared Holder.
USDOJ had previously announced that it was looking at practices in the seed industry, which Monsanto dominates, that might be anticompetitive.
Ample Opportunity for Input
Have your say in antitrust enforcement in agriculture
USDA and the United States Department of Justice have launched a cooperative ef-fort to investigate Agriculture and Antitrust Enforcement Issues. The departments held their first joint field hearing in Ankeny, Iowa, on March 12, 2010 (see Farm Futures April issue p. 20). Producers have four more opportunities to participate in person in joint USDA\USDoJ workshops this year. They are:
- May 21, 2010 - Normal, Alabama, focusing on the Poultry Industry
- June 7, 2010 - Madison, Wisconsin, focusing on the Dairy Industry
- August 26, 2010 - Fort Collins, Colorado, focusing on the Livestock Indus-try
- December 8, 2010 - Washington, D.C., focusing on Margins
Submitting Comments
Thus far, USDOJ has received in excess of 15,000 public comments regarding Agri-culture and Antitrust Enforcement Issues. You still have ample time to submit yours.
Any interested person may submit written comments responsive to any of the topics addressed in the Federal Register Notice and the workshops.
Written comments should be submitted to the Department of Justice in both hardcopy and electronic form.
Hardcopy submissions: Use the following caption on each submission: “Comments Regarding Agriculture and Antitrust Enforcement Issues in Our 21st Century Econ-omy”
Mail or deliver two (2) copies of each submission to:
Legal Policy Section
Antitrust Division
U.S. Department of Justice
450 5th Street, NW, Suite 11700
Washington, DC 20001
The Antitrust Division requests that, where possible, the paper copies of each com-ment be sent by courier or overnight service.
Electronic submissions: To make written submissions to the Antitrust Division in elec-tronic form, send an e-mail with the attached submission to agriculturalworkshops@usdoj.gov and include “Comment” in the subject line.
Electronic submissions must include the original source file (Word, WordPerfect, PowerPoint, Excel, etc.). Submissions in PDF only format will not be accepted.
Note: The size of an e-mail to the Antitrust Division, including all attachments, cannot exceed 10 MB. Accordingly, electronic documents that are voluminous should be submit-ted to the Antitrust Division using appropriate media (such as CDs) to the address listed under “Hardcopy submissions.” The Antitrust Division recommends that persons submit-ting such electronic documents use a courier delivery service, rather than mail, to avoid possible damage to electronic media in screening.
Privacy and confidentiality: Written submissions and the identity of the submitter may be disclosed, reproduced, and distributed by publication and/or posting on the Department of Justice Web site, at the discretion of the Department of Justice. Information that is submitted in connection with this workshop cannot be maintained as confidential by the Department of Justice. Written submissions should not include any information that the submitting person seeks to preserve as confidential.
Contact for submissions: For more information on making submissions, contact the Antitrust Division by e-mail at agriculturalworkshops@usdoj.gov.
Permalink: Click here
Tagged: farm, usda, Monsanto, soybeans, farm futures
|