Hungry for power

Financialization and the concentration of corporate control in the global food system

Bibliographic Data

ID8943318
AuthorsLouanne Keenan (0000-0003-4877-1472, University of Nottingham, corresponding author), Timothy Monteath (0000-0003-2481-9785, University of Warwick), Daniel Wojcik (0000-0003-2158-284X, National University of Singapore), Dariusz Wójcik (0000-0002-4200-3432)
Year2023
Volume147
Pages103909-103909
Publication date2023-11-18
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueGeoforum (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0016-7185 • E-ISSN: 1872-9398
PublisherElsevier BV (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1016/j.geoforum.2023.103909
OpenAlexW4388792463
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited45

The global food system is in crisis. Climate change, ecological degradation, and economic and military conflict have exposed significant vulnerabilities in how the world produces, distributes, and consumes food. While governments aim to address these intersecting crises, they typically overlook another critical factor - the unprecedented concentration of corporate control in the global food system driven by contemporary processes of financialization. The incursion of new financial actors and imperatives have encouraged food firms to implement mergers and acquisitions (M&As) to improve financial performance, generate shareholder value, and capture market share. This has resulted in record levels of concentration, with more power controlled by fewer firms. Surprisingly, there is little empirical detail concerning the uneven pace, scale, and geographies of this concentration. Our article develops a novel M&A-based approach to investigate the concentration of power and corporate control throughout the global food system. Drawing from a sample of 4449 M&A deals throughout 2001–20, we reveal the uneven geographical and sectoral characteristics of food systems concentration, showing that the majority of M&A deals are horizontal (within the same sub-sector) and domestic (within the same country). These findings allow us to reflect on when, where, and why corporate control and decision-making power are shifting between different actors and geographies throughout the global food system, ultimately underscoring the importance of bringing finance and financialization into closer dialogue with food systems research

Business · Control (management · Corporate governance · Economic system · Economics · Financial crisis · Financialization · Food security · Food systems · Geography · Macroeconomics · Market economy · Pace · Power (physics · Shareholder · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development · Ecology · Finance · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Political Economy and Marxism