Vice President Kamala Harris’ proposed food price gouging ban is attracting some support.
Farm Action, IPES-Food and dozens of other academics, labor groups, faith groups, antipoverty groups and farm groups, including Network Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, Oxfam America, R-CALF USA, and the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance, sent a letter to Vice President Kamala Harris applauding her proposed food price gouging ban and her pledge to crack down on food industry mergers, according to news release.
“Economists find that market abuses — such as price gouging and wage fixing — are likely to occur when the top four firms control more than 40% of the market,” the letter said. “Concentration levels surpass that percentage in almost every food and agriculture sector, from seeds, to meat processing, to retail grocery.”
The letter stated corporations “squeeze farmers at every angle, charging them more for inputs like seeds and fertilizer while paying them less for their products — and often using supply chain disruptions as excuses to further hike prices for farmers.”
For example, in 2021, the letter said fertilizer prices spiked to all-time highs, with nitrogen-based fertilizer prices increasing 159% to 210% from the year prior. Fertilizer corporations’ own financial statements disproved their excuses about higher costs and supply chain issues, the groups claim.
U.S. consumers are forced to keep staples off their grocery list because of excessively high prices, the letter said.
The letter’s signers conclude that the U.S. needs robust antitrust policies and enforcement throughout the entire food system to begin to undo this damage and urge Harris to continue this vital work.
“As a farmer, corporations are charging us more for what we need to do our job while paying us less for what we produce,” Joe Maxwell, chief strategy officer for Farm Action, said in a new release. “Corporations can get away with price gouging because they no longer have to compete for market share due to how few companies are in each sector.”
Raj Patel, IPES-Food panel expert and professor in the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin, said in the release that the U.S. food system is “more Monopoly than marketplace.”
“A few giant players have rigged the rules in their favor, and Big Food has used the pandemic and recovery to hike food prices far in excess of costs,” Maxwell said. “We’ve written to Vice President Harris today to urge her to stand firm against the corporate stranglehold on our food system. A serious plan to tackle price gouging will also support unions, farmers, and sustainable food, putting an end to the profiteering that’s unfairly driving up food prices for American families.”
