Amid Congressional investigation and federal, state and private antitrust cases, all eyes are on Big Tech.
But the outsized media, political and social attention paid to the tech industry has diverted focus from other important sectors.
There are monopolies and domestic cartels elsewhere—in healthcare, pharmaceuticals, media and communications, as well as food and agriculture.
The food system has been particularly fertile ground for rising concentration, the emergence of dominant firms and formation of domestic cartels.
In acquiring competitors both small and large, the six biggest agricultural biotechnology firms collapsed rapidly into the Big Three—Bayer, DuPont and ChemChina.
But some parts of the agricultural sector are rife with other damaging antitrust violations that we haven’t seen in Big Tech.
Rob Larew is president of National Farmers Union, which represents 200,000 family farmers and ranchers across the country. »
