Food monopolies are dangerous

It’s a tough time to be the parent of a newborn in the United States today. Not only is childcare prohibitively expen­sive, but the cost of all things — including baby products — is rising.

And there’s been a months-long shortage of baby formula.

There’s nothing more impor­tant to a parent than provid­ing for their child. As a mother who was unable to breastfeed, I relied on formula. I remember once making a long drive to an­other town when my local store was out of the brand my child was used to.

It was a stressful experience — and mild compared to what millions of parents are feeling right now as they face store shelves emptied of formula.

The formula scarcity began when the COVID-19 pandemic led to a disruption of ingredient supply chains and transporta­tion delays. But the root of the problem is the monopolization of our food industry by greedy, often careless corporations.

This past February, the Food and Drug Administration found that several leading formula brands produced by Abbott Lab­oratories were contaminated with dangerous bacteria.

That led to a recall and a temporary closure of Abbott’s main Michigan factory, where government inspectors found “shocking” conditions. Then, just as the Michigan plant re­opened, torrential flooding forced it to shut down again.

Although store shelves — when fully stocked — appear to offer a wide variety of baby formula brands, only two com­panies produce more than 70 percent of these products: Ab­bott and Mead Johnson. A third company, Nestlé, produces about 12 percent.

So when Abbott shuttered its Michigan plant, that single clo­sure affected a significant por­tion of the nation’s stock of for­mula. It’s the definition of put­ting all our eggs in one basket.

And it’s not just baby for­mula.

In the U.S. market, only three companies produce over 80 per­cent of all baby food products.

Four companies produce over 85 percent of all canned tuna. Three companies make nearly 80 percent of all pasta products. Four companies process 85 per­cent of beef. And so on.

The baby formula shortage has driven prices up — yay, cap­italism! In fact, food prices are rising sharply across the board. Meanwhile, big food manufac­turers are reaping record prof­its, undermining claims that they’re simply passing on their higher costs to customers.

Decades ago, food policy ana­lysts warned of the pitfalls of food monopolies.

Vandana Shiva’s 2000 book, Stolen Harvest, and Raj Patel’s 2007 book, Stuffed and Starved, linked the profits of the world’s wealthiest food corporations to the plight of the world’s poor­est farmers. They also pointed out that in the relentless cor­porate drive to lower costs and maximize profits, food supply chains were consolidating and becoming more vulnerable to disruptions.

Advocacy organizations like Farm Action and Food and Wa­ter Watch have likewise been sounding the alarm about food monopolies for years.

So on one end of the food chain there are starving farm­ers, and on the other end there are starving families — includ­ing babies. In the middle are a handful of fat cats — massive corporations like Abbott and Cargill — that keep getting fat­ter.

The solutions are simple, and can be easily enacted if there is political will. Rep. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin, for example, has sponsored a new bill that would enact a moratorium on food in­dustry mergers.

Formula-feeding parents could become powerful spokes­people for breaking up these greedy conglomerates.

One mother, Laura Stew­art, told the Associated Press how difficult it has been for her 10- month-old daughter to deal with switching to what­ever brands are available: “She is typically a very happy girl,” said Stewart. But without her regular formula, “she spits up more. She’s just more cranky.”

Now that corporate food mo­nopolies are impacting the most vulnerable human beings in our society — babies — will the government take drastic mea­sures to break them up?

Kolhatkar is the host of “Rising Up With Sonali,” a television and ra­dio show on Free Speech TV and Pacifica stations. This commentary was produced by the Economy for All project at the Independent Me­dia Institute and adapted by Other­Words.org.