Agribusiness Action Initiatives

In October 2002, representatives from farmer, worker, consumer, environmental, and faith-based organizations attended the AAI launch in Chicago, Illinois. The main organizer of this forum was the Center of Concern; they were looking to expand their corporate accountability program and create an open network focused on agriculture and food production. In a world of seemingly abundant food commodities, why were so many people still going hungry?

A North America Steering Committee made up of representatives from that original gathering sought to initiate campaigns holding large agri-food corporations accountable to their claim of “feeding the world”. AAI groups represented farmers, environmentalists, labor unions, consumer groups, academics, churches and policy advocacy organizations who share a common concern that monopoly power among the transnational corporations that control markets for seeds, fertilizers, processing, manufacturing and retailing of food is detrimental to producers and consumers alike.

In June 2005, North American groups joined with comparable European, Asian, South American and African groups at Highleighs conference center in Hertfordshire, England. Ninety representatives of farmer, worker, consumer, environmental, faith-based and development organizations came together to discuss their concerns about the disproportionate economic power and political influence of giant agri-food corporations and how we might better coordinate our national and regional efforts.

In 2006, the day-to-day administration of AAI shifted to the National Catholic Rural Life Conference in Des Moines, Iowa. They also assisted in coordinating North American groups. Working group activities at this time included: U.S. Farm Bill; Food Retailing (with links to AAI Europe); Food Process Workers; and Community and Environmental Impacts of Meat & Poultry Industries.

In March 2008, another North American AAI forum was held, this time in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. An important focus was the working conditions of farm and food workers, many who are recent immigrants, people of color and female.

At the beginning of 2009, a new regional coordinator came on board, sponsored by the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility. North American action initiatives are broadly designed to:

-- Provide public information about the harmful effects of corporate concentration in the food system.

-- Bring together agriculture and food system reformers and encourage cross-constituency collaborations, thereby maximizing the effectiveness of civil society responses to corporate oligopoly power.

-- Sponsor research projects and advocacy efforts that are conceived and led by North American participants.

-- Promote new laws, regulatory enforcement, policy reform and shifts in market structure that reduce the disproportionate economic and political power of agri-food companies and allow for the re-emergence of food production and distribution systems which are more socially and environmentally sustainable.