Power hungry: six reasons to regulate global food corporations

This report critically examines "agrifood" industry regulation and the corporations that trade, process and distribute the goods produced by poor farmers and rural workers in developing countries.It highlights six reasons to regulate agrifood trans-national corporations (TNCs):TNCs use and abuse their market power to drain wealth from poor communities TNCs pay low prices and capture the resulting value TNCs marginalise poor farmers and rural workers TNCs are not fully accountable for their impacts on human rights and the environment corporate social responsibility is optional and insufficient people harmed by corporate activity are denied access to justice.The paper also gives a number of key recommendations aiming at re-governing agrifood markets towards pro-poor development goals and holding TNCs legally accountable for their impacts on human rights and the environment. They include:OECD governments should recognise, monitor and take action to prevent the misuse of buyer power in agrifood markets, including cross-border abuses OECD governments should build capacity in developing countries to manage anti-competitive practices OECD governments should revisit the case for international commodity agreements OECD governments should increase the volume and quality of aid supporting small-scale agriculture, including funds to strengthen and establish rural producer organisations OECD governments should provide assistance to build stakeholder capacity in developing countries; for example, to implement and enforce local and domestic legislation to regulate TNCs, and to enable civil society to engage with companies regarding their adverse impacts developing country governments should prioritise the development of smallholder agriculture in domestic policies, including strengthening, and where appropriate forming, rural producer organisations developing country governments should recognise and monitor buyer power in agrifood markets, and take action to prevent abusestrans-national corporations should apply fair trade principles to all trade with producers in developing countries as standard corporate practice trans-national corporations should widen their supply base to include more smallholders who wish to supply TNCs, and invest in the development of smallholder organisations and marketing infrastructure.