Agricultural Policy Paper Published

August 2, 2000

The Organization for Competitive Markets (OCM), Des Moines, has published a paper titled "A Food and Agricultural Policy for the 21st Century" with 17 authors who include agricultural economists, rural sociologists, antitrust attorneys, agricultural historians, political scientists and nonprofit organizational leaders.

"In this day of unprecedented prosperity, farm families got left behind and Rural America is in crisis," said Fred Stokes, president of OCM. "As the public and policy makers consider alternatives to address this crisis, I hope that this document is widely used to bring more balance and reason to this crucial debate," Stokes added.

Edited by Michael C. Stumo, the document provides guidelines for an improved farm and food system that focuses on four areas: antitrust policy, conventional farm programs, whole food system strategies and agricultural research policy. Additionally, many of the participants themselves contributed individual papers addressing cutting edge issues of public concern. For instance, Dr. Neil Harl explains why "the greatest economic threat to farmers as independent entrepreneurs is the deadly combination of concentration and vertical integration."

Albert A. Foer, president of the American Antitrust Institute, shows in a piece entitled "Baked Lasagna" how the spiraling concentration of the retail and processing sectors requires that "the federal antitrust laws should be used expansively to preserve as much of the remaining competition as possible."

Dr. Daryll Ray of the Agricultural Policy Analysis Center at the University of Tennessee explains why the experiment that is the 1996 Farm Bill has failed, and where we go from here.

Beyond concentration issues, participants also considered the biotechnological age, a short history of agricultural institutions, whether farmers and agribusiness are partners or competitors, and the social justice impact of the food system.

"A Food and Agriculture Policy for the 21st Century" can be downloaded for free online at www.competitivemarkets.com. Printed copies (113 pages) are available for $17.00 plus $3.00 shipping and handling by writing Organization for Competitive Markets, P.O. Box 6486, Lincoln, NE 68506. Online ordering should be available as of the first week of August.

The papers published result from a food policy retreat held from April 29-May 1 in Parkville, MO. The impetus for the Retreat stemmed from the widespread dissatisfaction with the current status of agricultural policy and market structure; the increasing consumer concern about the quality of their food and how food is produced; and the belief that progress must come from an approach that considers a wider range of stakeholders than merely agribusiness.

"In our view," says Stumo in the introduction, "these papers capture more fully the array of issues, concerns and solutions that farmers and citizens share with regard to the problems now occurring in food production, processing, marketing and consumption.

"We constructed and facilitated a forum whereby these thinkers no longer discussed problems and solutions in the exclusive company of others within their profession. Rather, antitrust lawyers were challenged by rural sociologists who were, in turn, challenged by agricultural economists – and so on."

He said the approach resulted in papers "which more fully capture the dynamic world of the farm and food system in multiple planes. For example, the proper balance among market forces, government actions, and civil society values is closely examined. At the same time, these papers deal extensively with the proper structure of the industry at the production, processing, marketing and consumption levels." Topics range further from supply and demand concerns of conventional farm policy to the needs of poor urban consumers.

The Organization for Competitive Markets is a multi-disciplinary, nonprofit organization dedicated to restoring open and truly competitive markets to agriculture for the benefit of farmers, ranchers and rural communities, according to the OCM. The group generally takes a populist approach to farm issues, as do many of the report’s authors.

For the entire report, go to the Internet at http://www.competitivemarkets.com./library/academic/21stcentury/index.htm