Who Owns Nature? - ETC Group

52 Pages·2008·6.54 MB·English

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Who Owns Nature?
Corporate Power and the Final Frontier in the
Commodification of Life
November 2008

Communiqué
November 2008 Issue #100
Who Owns Nature?
Corporate Power and the Final Frontier in the
Commodification of Life
ETC Group
www.etcgroup.org
November 2008
Publication Design by Wordsmith Services and yellowDog : creative
Original Artwork by Stig
Table of Contents
Problems, Fascinations and Opportunities: A Preface 3
Who Owns Nature? 4
Graphic: Top 10 Corporations: Global Market Share by Sector 4
The Context 5
Chart: Value of Global Mergers & Acquisitions 7
Section 1:
Corporate Farm Inputs: Seeds, Agrochemicals, Fertilizers 11
Seed Industry 11
World’s Top 10 Seed Companies 11
Chart: Global Commercial Seed Market 11
Chart: Top 10 Share of Global Proprietary Seed Market 12
Chart: Global Proprietary Seed Market, 2007 12
Agrochemical Industry 15
World’s Top 10 Pesticide Firms 15
Chart: Global Agrochemical Market, 2007 sales 15
Fertilizer Industry 17
World’s Biggest Fertilizer Companies 17
Chart: Corporate Food Chain At-a-Glance 18
Section 2:
Corporate Food Outputs: Food & Beverage Manufacturing, Global Grocery Retailers 21
Food & Beverage Manufacturing Industry 21
World’s Top 10 Food & Beverage Corporations 21
Grocery Retailing Industry 22
World’s Top 10 Global Food Retailers 22
Chart: Global Food Retailers: Top 10 Account for 40% of Groceries Sold by Top 100 22
Chart: Global Food & Beverage Companies: Top 10 Account for 35% of Packaged Food Sold by Top 100 23
Cartoon by Tom Toles 23
Section 3:
Corporate Medicine & Health: Big Pharma, Biotech, Animal Pharmaceutical, Bioinformatics 25
Corporate Medicine & Health At-a-Glance 25
Pharmaceutical Industry 25
World’s Top 10 Pharmaceutical Companies 25
Chart: Top 10’s Market Share of Top 100 Companies 26
Cartoon by Paul Noth 27
Biotechnology Industry 28
World’s Top 10 Publicly-Traded Biotechnology Companies 28
Biotech’s Top 10 Blockbuster Drugs, 2007 29
Veterinary Pharmaceutical Industry 30
World’s Top 10 Animal Pharma Companies 30
The BioInformation Industry 31
Major Players In DNA Data Generation 32
Major Players In Software, Hardware, DNA Data Processing, Storing and Analyzing 33
Section 4:
Commodifying Nature’s Last Straw? Extreme Genetic Engineering and the
Post-Petroleum Sugar Economy 35
Cartoon by Stig 38
Synthetic Biology Players and Corporate Partners 40
The New Biomas(s)ters: Converging Technologies Crystallize Corporate Power 41
Leading Commercial Gene Synthesis Companies 42
Petroleum Refining: Top 10 42
Chemical Industry: Top 10 42
Forest, Paper & Packaging Corporations: Top 10 43
Companies Involved in Oilseed, Grain and Sugar Processing/Trading: Top 11 43
Conclusion 45
The Global Economy: Who’s Got the Power 48
Problems, Fascinations and Opportunities: A Preface
Three decades ago, humanity had a Industry got what it wanted. From thou- sil fuels can be made from the carbon
problem; science had a fascination; sands of seed companies and public found in plants. The oceans’ algae, the
and industry had an opportunity. Our breeding institutions three decades Amazon’s trees and savanna grasses
problem was injustice. The ranks of the ago, ten companies now control more can provide the (purportedly) renew-
hungry were expanding while the ranks than two-thirds of global proprietary able raw materials to feed people,
of farmers were thinning. Meanwhile, seed sales. From dozens of pesticide fuel cars, manufacture widgets, and
science was fascinated by biotechnol- companies three decades ago, ten now cure diseases while fending off global
ogy – the idea that we could genetically control almost 90% of agrochemical warming. In order for industry to realize
engineer crops and livestock (and sales worldwide. From almost a thou- this vision, governments must accept
people) with traits that could overcome sand biotech startups 15 years ago, ten that this technology is too expensive.
all our problems. Agribusiness saw an companies now have three-quarters of Competitors must be convinced it is
opportunity to extract the enormous industry revenue. And, six of the lead- too risky. Regulations need to be dis-
surplus value that was laced throughout ers in seeds are also six of the leaders mantled and monopoly patents need to
the food chain. The hugely-decentral- in pesticides and biotech. Over the past be approved.
ized food system held pockets of profit three decades, a handful of companies
just crying out to be centralized. All has gained control of that one-quarter New technologies don’t
industry had to do was convince gov- of the world’s annual biomass (crops,
have to be socially useful
ernments that biotech’s gene revolution livestock, fisheries, etc.) that has
or technically superior in
could end hunger without harming the been integrated into the world market
environment. Biotechnology was pre- economy. order to be profitable.
sented as too risky for small companies
Today, humanity has a problem; sci-
and too expensive for public research-
ence has a fascination; and industry
ers. In order to bring this technology to
has an opportunity. Our problem is And, as it was with biotechnology, the
the world, public breeders would have
hunger and injustice in a world of cli- new technologies don’t need to be
to stop competing with private breed-
mate chaos. Science’s fascination is socially useful or technically superior
ers, regulators would have to look the
with convergence at the nano-scale (i.e., they don’t have to work) in order
other way when pesticide companies
– including the potential to design new to be profitable. All they have to do is
bought seed companies which, in turn,
life forms from the bottom-up. Industry’s chase away the competition and coerce
bought other seed companies. Govern-
opportunity lies in the three-quarters of governments into surrendering control.
ments would have to protect industry’s
the world’s biomass that (although used Once the market is monopolized, how
investments by offering patents first on
and useful) remains outside the global the technology performs is irrelevant.
plants and then on genes. Consumer
market economy. With the aid of new
safety regulations, hard-won over the
technologies, industry believes that any
course of a century, would have to yield
chemical made from the carbon in fos-
to genetically modified foods and drugs.
Large Numbers: How Many Zeros?
In this report, ETC Group uses the following number-naming system:
One million = 1,000,000 = 1 million
One billion = 1,000,000,000 = 1,000 million
One trillion = 1,000,000,000,000 = 1,000,000 million
$20 trillion is the same as $20,000 billion, which is the same as $20,000,000 million, or $20,000,000,000,000
3
Who Owns Nature?
In this 100th issue of the ETC Communiqué we update Oligopoly, Inc. – our ongoing
series tracking corporate concentration in the life industry. We also analyze the past three
decades of agribusiness efforts to monopolize the 24% of living nature that has been
commodified, and expose a new strategy to capture the remaining three-quarters that has,
until now, remained beyond the market economy.
Top 10 Corporations Global Market Share by Sector
m aceu
r t
a i
c
h
a
p
l
s
s eeds o c hemi
r c
g a
a l
55% Market Share s
d & bev
o e
r
o
67% of Proprietary f a 89% Market Share
g
Market Share e

o c e ry re b i otech
r t
g ai p r s
l rocess o
26% Market Share
m a l ph
a
40% of groceries ni r 66% Market Share
a m
sold by top 100
a
63% Market Share
Source: ETC Group
4
The Context
The 100th issue of ETC Group’s Com- Amidst a world food crisis, collapsing sequester carbon, or blast sulfate parti-
muniqué provides an update on corpo- ecosystems and climate chaos, new cles into the stratosphere to screen out
rate concentration in the life sciences technologies are once again being sunlight and lower temperatures, etc.).
industry. We have been monitoring cor- promoted by international institutions,
Promoted in the name of fighting hun-
porate power in commercial food, farm- governments and Big Business as the
ger, increasing production and arresting
ing, and health for three decades. Ten magic bullet for boosting food produc-
climate change, technologies that rein-
years ago, ETC Group monitored con- tion and saving the planet. The idea of
force corporate power are deepening
trol and ownership of biotech. Today, a technological fix for agricultural de-
existing inequalities, accelerating envi-
biotech is becoming “extreme genetic velopment is nothing new, but govern-
ronmental degradation and introducing
engineering.” Technology convergence ments are stepping aside and inviting
new societal risks.
is re-defining life sciences. We’ve corporations to cast themselves as the
reached the point where it’s difficult to key players in the fight against hunger
Things Fall Apart: For the millions
talk about biotechnology without talking and poverty. Instead of challenging
of people who spend 60-80 percent
about nanotechnology and synthetic bi- or changing structures that generate
of their income on food, the impacts
ology. All of the biosciences are fueled poverty and exacerbate inequality,
of spiralling food and fuel prices in
by information technology or bioinfor- governments are working hand-in-hand
2006-2008 are “unprecedented in scale
matics – the computer-based analysis with corporations to reinforce the very
and brutality.”1 In 2006-2007, the num-
of biological materials. As a result, we institutions and policies that are the
ber of food-insecure people rose from
root causes of today’s agro-industrial
849 million to 982 million. The U.S.
food crisis.
…We can’t understand
Department of Agriculture’s July 2008
corporate power if we Concentration in the life industry has assessment predicts that the number of
hungry people in 70 South countries will
allowed a handful of powerful corpora-
don’t understand the
increase to 1.2 billion by 2017.2 In other
tions to seize the research agenda,
concept of convergence – dictate national and international trade words, rather than halving the number
of hungry people by 2015 (the goal that
agreements and agricultural policies,
converging technologies
governments have repeatedly pledged
and engineer the acceptance of new
and converging capital. to meet) their ranks are projected to
technologies as the “science-based”
increase by 50%. The food import bill
solution to increase crop yields, feed
of 82 poor countries (designated Low-
the hungry and save the planet. The
Income Food-Deficit Countries) is ex-
Gene Giants tell us that if agriculture
can’t understand corporate power if
pected to reach US$169 billion in 2008,
is threatened by climate extremes, we
we don’t understand the concept of
40 per cent more than in 2007.3 (To
need “climate-ready” genes (patented
convergence – converging technologies
put that in perspective, governments
ones) to engineer crops to withstand
and converging capital. Convergence
meeting at the FAO Food Summit in
drought, heat and saline soils. When
is driving new and unprecedented cor-
June 2008 pledged just $12.3 billion to
hunger is viewed through the nar-
porate alliances across all industry sec-
help countries in the South – and most
row lens of science and technology,
tors and setting the stage for a dramatic
of that has vaporized with the colossal
genetically engineered foods are the
transformation of the global economy
corporate bailouts.)
corporate quick-fix. When Peak Oil is
into what some call the “sugar econo-
approached as a technical challenge,
my” or “carbohydrate economy.” Bio-
According to Planet Retail, global food
industrial agrofuels are the obvious
logical manufacturing platforms fueled
spending reached $7.0 trillion in 2007
answer. When technology is promoted
by plant-derived sugars will provide the
and shot up 14% to $8.0 trillion in
as a painless solution to tackle global
incentive for industry to capture and
2008. Global expenditures of food are
warming, radical geo-engineering
commodify the earth’s remaining plant
expected to reach $8.5 trillion in 2009
schemes become a rational idea (e.g.,
biomass on a colossal scale.
– a projected increase of 21% between
let’s brew vast phytoplankton farms on
2007-2009.4
the ocean’s surface to [supposedly]
5
The food emergency didn’t emerge ▶ The very institutions and policies a corporate food chain broken to bits.
overnight, and it didn’t begin with responsible for creating the disaster are Recent examples include:
record-high prices. For decades, U.S. first in line to benefit from the crisis.
and European policies have favoured
▶ Governments are working hand- Unhealthy and hazardous
corporate agribusiness by keeping
commodity prices low, dismantling trade in-hand with industry to ignore the root food products and related
causes of the disaster and sidestep
barriers and marginalizing millions
environmental disasters
structural reforms.
of small-scale farmers who couldn’t
compete with a deluge of subsidized are constant reminders
Yet, the political reaction to the financial
food imports. Trends in world food trade
of a corporate food chain
crisis is to call for a return to regulation,
shifted radically over the past 40 years.
while the political response to the food broken to bits.
According to FAO’s 2004 report on
crisis is to press for further deregula-
commodity markets, in the early 1960s
tion. When the food crisis is defined as
developing countries had an overall ag-
food scarcity and hungry people, the ▶ Food (un)safety scandals:
ricultural trade surplus approaching US
market-based prescription is to further
In September/October 2008 infant
$7 billion per year.5 By the end of the
liberalize markets and boost agricultural
milk powder laced with an industrial
1980s, the surplus had disappeared.
production with heavy doses of new
chemical, melamine, sickened 53,000
Countries in the South reversed course
technology. The real disaster is the cor-
Chinese infants and killed four. The
in the almost two decades since then to
porate controlled agro-industrial food
scandal involved every major Chinese
become net importers of food. In coun-
system. This system has entrenched
dairy company and spread to global
tries categorized as “least developed,”
corporate power while undermining the
brands of food products (chocolates,
imports of agricultural commodities
ability of small-scale producers to pro-
cheese, biscuits, etc.) around the
grew to more than twice the level of
duce food for their own communities.
world – resulting in massive recalls
exports. The current tragedy stems
No matter how much new technology is
involving billions of dollars. After being
from decades of depressed commodity
employed in the name of boosting food
discovered in animal feed, the scandal
prices, trade liberalization, withering
production, the agro-industrial food
has grown to include unknown quanti-
investments in national agricultural pro-
system is incapable of feeding hungry
ties of melamine-tainted eggs and meat
grams, and the ever-increasing domi-
people. And that’s because hunger and
products.
nation of the corporate agro-industrial
poverty are the consequences of ineq-

food system.
uitable systems – not food scarcity or
By October 2008 contaminated cold
inadequate technologies.
In the second half of 2008, global finan- cuts in Canada had killed 20 and sick-
cial markets are imploding and headline ened hundreds more, exposing the fact
news is shifting from food crisis to The real disaster is the that virtually all of Canada’s cold cuts
financial crisis. There are striking simi- come from a single processing plant
corporate-controlled
larities between the market meltdown owned by a single company, regardless
agro-industrial food
and the food crisis: of brand name or destination.
system.
▶ Both the financial system and
In February 2008 a record 143 mil-
the food system have suffered from de-
lion pounds of hazardous hamburger
Broken to Bits: Deregulation of the
cades of deregulation. The difference is
were recalled in the U.S. According to
corporate-controlled food system has
that bankrupt banks are getting plenty
the U.S. Centers for Disease Control,
resulted in a cornucopia of calamities:
of attention from politicians; lengthening
every year in the U.S. 76 million people
It is making us sicker, fatter and more
lineups at food banks are not.
get sick, 325,000 are hospitalized and
vulnerable. Unhealthy and hazardous
5,000 die from foodborne hazards. The
food products and related environmen-
economic costs of serious illness and
tal disasters are constant reminders of
6
death from the five most common food- Value of Global Mergers & Acquisitions (US$ trillions)
borne pathogens reached almost $7
billion in 2000.7 5
4.5
▶ Plastic Peril: In October 2008 Can-
4
ada confirmed that bisphenol A (BPA)
3.5
– a chemical used to make plastic baby
3
bottles and water bottles (and found in
2.5
the lining of nearly every soft drink can
2
and canned food product) – is a toxic
1.5
substance, particularly dangerous for
1
infants. In the U.S. alone, more than 6
million pounds of products containing 0.5
BPA are produced per annum. 0
2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
▶ Obesity Burden: The global
Year
obesity epidemic is one of the world’s
greatest public health challenges. A
new study reveals that almost one-third Corporate Excess, Disparity and Inequality
of the world’s adult population is over-
According to labor economist Tom Pizzigati, the combined net worth of today’s
weight or obese.8 In 2005, an estimated
1,125 billionaires ($4.4 trillion) is likely to exceed the combined wealth of half
23% of the world’s adult population
of the world’s adult population.16 Put in another way, the combined worth of the
was overweight (937 million), and
world’s wealthiest 1,125 individuals exceeds Germany’s 2007 gross national
nearly 10% were obese (396 million).9
income.
Of the 396 million obese people, 53%
lived in developing countries. If trends According to the Institute for Policy Studies, CEOs of the top 500 U.S.-based
continue, there will be 1.2 billion obese corporations averaged $10.5 million in pay in 2007, 344 times the pay of typi-
people by 2030 and 62-68% of them cal American workers. The top 50 hedge and private equity fund managers
will live in the global South.10 In the averaged $588 million each in 2007, more than 19,000 times the amount
U.S. alone, the economic cost of obe- earned by the typical U.S. worker.17 Even as government coffers are bailing out
sity was about $117 billion per annum investment banks, corporate CEOs continue to cash prodigious paychecks.
in 2000.11 The CEO of now-bankrupt Lehman Brothers, took home $17,000 per hour in
2007 – about $45 million – for driving his company into the ground.18
▶ Dead Zones: Chemical fertilizer
In August 2008 ExxonMobil, the world’s second largest corporation, was gush-
pollution is the primary cause of 400
ing record-breaking profits at the rate of $90,000 per minute.19 Referring to
coastal “dead zones” that now cover
the CEO of Exxon and other oil industry giants, NASA climatologist Dr. James
an area of 245,000 km2 (the size of the
Hansen told a U.S. Congressional committee that these executives “should be
U.K. or Ghana). Oxygen-depleted ma-
tried for high crimes against humanity and nature” for engineering doubt about
rine waters have increased by one-third
global warming and obstructing corrective measures.20
since 1995.
In 2007, Wal-Mart’s revenues were higher than gross national income in
▶ Engineering Taste: The corporate Greece or Denmark. BP’s 2007 revenues exceeded South Africa’s gross na-
food system has redefined the notion of tional income; Toyota’s 2007 earnings topped Venezuela’s.
fresh food by overcoming barriers that
In 2004, America’s wealthiest 1% of the population held 35% of the nation’s
were once imposed by nature (or by
total wealth – over $2.5 trillion more in net worth than the entire bottom 90%.21
regulators). Dutch author Jan Douwe
van der Ploeg describes how the ten- A 2008 OECD report reveals that the U.S. has the highest inequality and pov-
derness and taste of industrial chicken, erty rates in 20 OECD countries after Mexico, Turkey and Portugal.22
for example, is not necessarily related
7
to breed, feed or treatment, but may be
Power to the people... or, power to the bottom?
the result of “the injection of water, ad-
ditional proteins, softeners and flavours In the globalized marketplace, to be on top, you need to control the bottom.
into any breed of chicken.”12 Dark The greatest power resides at the most fundamental level. From the perspec-
chicken meat, adds van der Ploeg, “is tive of agribusiness over the past three decades, power has moved from the
milled, mixed with water into a meat seed to the gene to the atom. Tomorrow, power may flow to those who control
ooze, centrifuged and cooked, after genomic databases. We used to say that if you controlled the seed, you con-
which a whitish chicken filet…is ob- trolled the first link in the food chain. Then, gene patents in the 1990s under-
tained.”13 He estimates that 80 percent mined the plant variety patents of the 1970s. Now, nanobiotechnology patents
of food industry R&D is oriented to- threaten to usurp control to the atomic level. Power follows gravity, it seems.
wards the manufacturing of these kinds
of “boundary shifts.” But, not really. Sow a bag of atoms and the chances of a bumper crop are dis-
mal. Throw a mess of genes into a pot and dinner will be delayed. Plant seed
Consolidation Trends: and feed the family. Over the last three decades we have learned that genes
play only a bit part in creation and atoms are a long way from the bottom of
According to industry analysts, in 2007
the physical universe. But, seeds (mixed in soil, water and sunlight) are, in
the aggregate value of global food
truth, the first link in the food chain. Seed is the fundamental source of political
industry mergers and acquisitions
power that governments must not forget and farmers need to protect.
(including food processors, distribu-
tors and retailers) was roughly $200
billion, compared to half that amount
in 2005.14 The mergers in this sector controlled and socially just food sys- edge and innovation that rivals all the
mirror the global trend in mergers and tems (“Food Sovereignty,” as defined patent offices in the world. While the
acquisitions. by Via Campesina, what others have global struggle for land, food and jus-
called a global repeasantization move- tice is playing out on a lopsided playing
In 2003, the worldwide value of merg-
ment).24 Peasant farmers, civil society field, it’s also true that our view of cor-
ers and acquisitions totaled a record-
and social movements are actively porate power is often a distorted one. A
breaking $1.38 trillion. By 2005 it bal-
creating alternative food and health lot depends on perspective:
looned to $2.7 trillion – and then spiked
systems built on resilience, sustainabil-
27% to reach $4.48 trillion in 2007. Although Wal-Mart is the largest buyer
ity and sovereignty.
and seller of food on the planet, it ac-
“Our world is In the global struggle for Food Sov- counts for only 3.5% of the $5.1 trillion
ereignty, the playing field isn’t level, dollars spent on retail food worldwide in
not for sale.” 23 but the scope and scale of resistance 2007. An estimated 85% of the world’s
is massive, extending from the local food is still produced relatively close
to the international level. For all their to where it is consumed25 – much of
power and might, corporations do not it outside the formal market system.
The Global Food Fight
have a monopoly on innovation and Of the world’s 450 million farms, 85%
The statistics and analysis in this report knowledge. Even after decades of mar- are smallholder farms of less than 2
provide a snapshot of technology con- ginalization by corporate food systems, hectares.26
vergence and corporate concentration the vast majority of the world’s food is
in the industrial life sciences. It is diffi- produced in local food economies by While the proprietary seed market ac-
cult to exaggerate the power and reach peasant farmers, fisherfolk, pastoralists counts for over 80% of the commercial
of corporate actors in the global food and indigenous peoples. They are the seed supply, approximately three-
and health arena. At the same time, backbone of the world’s food system. quarters of the world’s farmers routinely
there is vast and growing resistance to Peasant farmers conduct more scien- save seeds from their harvest and grow
the dislocation and devastation caused tific research and breed far more plant locally-bred varieties. At least 1.4 bil-
by the agro-industrial food system. Mil- varieties than corporations. Collectively, lion people depend upon farmer-saved
lions of people are struggling for locally they constitute a repository of knowl- seed. In 2007, institutional breeders
8