Global Food Cartel an Instrument for Starvation - 3

Unilever is an example of how the different corporate entities operate as part of one interlocked syndicate. The former chairman of Unilever, M.F. Van den Moven, now sits on the board of the other Anglo-Dutch giant, Royal Dutch Shell Petroleum, the world's largest marketer of oil and a controlling force in the energy cartel.

Meat: The cartel's four major export source regions (the United States; the European Union; the British Commonwealth countries of New Zealand, Australia, and Canada; and the Ibero-American nations Argentina and Brazil) exert enormous dominance over meat exports. As well, a Chinese bloc of China, Taiwan, and Hongkong (the last nation a re-exporter) is important in pork and poultry exports.

Figure 7 shows that for 1994, the cartel's basic food export regions commanded 85% of the world's export of beef and veal of 4.95 million metric tons; when the Chinese market is added in, these regions commanded 92% of the world's export trade of 2.1 million tons of pork, and 93% of the world's export trade of 5.84 million metric tons of poultry. The export of pork and poultry in China and Taiwan is increasingly run by the food cartel.

Four of the cartel's biggest companies in beef export are Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland/Töpfer, ConAgra/Peavey, and Iowa Beef Processors, now called IBP. The Dakota City, Nebraska-based IBP exemplifies how the oligarchy employs its corporate offshoots. Once owned by Armand Hammer's Occidental Petroleum Co., today 13% of the stock of IBP is owned by FMR Corp., the holding company for Fidelity Investments, the largest family of mutual funds in the United States, which is run by the Boston Brahmin oligarchical families. FMR is interlocked with other parts of the Windsor cartel—it is a large owner of raw material cartel companies, including shares of 5% or more of Homestake Mining, Coeur D'Alene Mines, and Santa Fe Pacific Gold Corp., three of the world's largest gold mining companies.

Through IBP, the food cartel is intervening in the U.S. Presidential elections, giving heavy backing to the "free enterprise" Presidential campaign of Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.). On IBP's board of directors is Alec Courtalis, a Florida real estate magnate who was national finance co-chairman of the 1992 Bush-Quayle campaign, and is currently chairman of the futuristic Armand Hammer United World College and finance committee chairman of the Gramm for President campaign. In addition, Gramm's wife, Wendy Gramm, is an IBP board member. From 1988 to 1993, Wendy Gramm chaired the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, during which time the CFTC rigged the explosive growth in speculative derivatives instruments.

Edible oils and fats: The United States, the European Union, and Argentina and Brazil thoroughly dominate the export market in the soybean and its by-products, the most basic source of edible oils and fats. Figure 8 documents that the food cartel export source sectors are the masters of 90% of the international trade in soybeans, of 32.1 million metric tons per year; 90% of the international trade in soybean meal, of 31.1 million metric tons; and, along with British Commonwealth member India, 92% of the 31.1 million metric tons of soybean meal exports.

According to spokesmen for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, as well as private industry, the same six companies that dominate the international grain trade also dominate the international trade in soybeans and by-products. The one additional cartel member company which is influential in the soybean trade, and which is smaller than the leading six companies, is S.I. Joseph Co. of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Burton Joseph, chairman of this company, is a former national chairman and a leading member of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith. He is a longtime enemy of Lyndon LaRouche.

Feed and seed: The cartel also controls feed for animals and seed for planting. British Petroleum, through its Nutrition division, is the largest feed producer in Europe. Having bought Purina Mills from Ralston Purina Company, British Petroleum, one of the House of Windsor's key energy companies, is now the second largest feed producer in America. Cargill, the world's largest grain exporter, through its Nutrena Feed division, is also the biggest producer of animal feed and hybrid seed in the world, while Continental Grain, through its Wayne Feed division, is one of the biggest producers of feed and a major force in hybrid seed production.

Domestic markets

The cartel exercises an iron hand over the domestic agricultural economies of nations, especially those that comprise the four export source regions of the food cartel. This is exercised through the processing industries: If one controls the processing industries, one controls domestic trade. Except for use as animal feed, corn, wheat, and soybean cannot be eaten in their unrefined form (excluding sweet corn, which is eaten by humans, but which is a minuscule percentage of the annual corn harvest). The grain, or soybean (which is a legume), must be processed. The same is true of meat, which must be slaughtered and cut, before it is fit for human consumption.

This is where the processing-milling industries, in the case of grains and soybean, and the packing/slaughtering industries, in the case of meat, come in.

Taking America as the test case, in order to make the case generally, one can see the cartel's domination.

For example, Figures 9, 10, 11, and 12, demonstrate that the main grain companies of the oligarchy's food cartel control 71% of the milling of America's flour; 57% of the dry milling of America's corn; 74% of the wet milling of America's corn; and 76% of the crushing of America's soybeans.

(In the dry milling of corn, the corn is turned into corn meal, muffins, corn flakes, etc. In the wet milling of corn, the corn is turned into

sweetener, starch, alcohol, ethanol, etc. Of America's corn crop of 7.4 million bushels, 5.6 million bushels will be consumed as animal feed; 1.5 million bushels will be wet milled; and 0.3 million bushels will be dry milled.)

Figures 13, 14, and 15 confirm that the largest meat companies in the food cartel (IBP, ConAgra, Cargill, and two smaller companies) control 72% of America's beef slaughtering/packing; 45% of its pork slaughtering/packing; and 70% of its sheep slaughtering/packing. The meatpacking industry demonstrates the accelerated rate at which the cartel is building its concentration in these industries. In 1979, the top four packers controlled 41% of the industry. Today, they control 72%.

Finally, as Figure 16 shows, four of the six leading grain cartel companies own 24% of America's grain elevator storage capacity. However, this figure is deceptive. Many of the grain elevators in America are in local areas, where there is a substantial degree of individual or cooperative ownership. When one gets to regional grain elevators, the grain cartel's ownership percentage is higher. And at ports, where grain is transshipped, the same four grain cartel companies own 59% of all American grain elevator facilities.

A farmer must sell his grain either to a grain elevator, or, in the rarer case where he can afford transport, to a grain miller. In either case, it is a grain cartel company to which he must sell. By this process, the grain cartel sets the price to the farmer—at the lowest level possible.

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