> Still, in spite of the distortions to the market, my impression is that it's still a functioning market, the barriers to entry are not very high, there's sufficient competition, and we are not in any danger of shortages. (Finding healthy food at a decent price may be another matter...)
I take issue with your conclusion, just look at the consolidation by the massive Ag-corps owned by big Pharma. Monsanto's purchase from Bayer is cause for extreme concern, but Dupont and Novartis via Syngenta are another massive corp which in tandem with Nestle repersent a large segment of food and water in the World, as well as seed stock.
The barrier of entry is hard, depending on which crop and partly why I got into Ag (biodynamic horticulture with an emphasis in hemp), but I'm proud to say that we have solved that problem in the US.
As for the price of food, we have never had cheaper food, actually and I'd argue this is holding back many more to enter the sector--prior to COVID we were making amazing progress in making more young, first time (small) farmers.
With that said, we are in a much better place then when I started all of this back in 2008, where farmer's markets were fringe and tech money flowing into a company like whole Foods was unthinkable, so I'm bowing out and letting the younger bucks take the helm and eagerly anticipate better results then what my generation did.
I take issue with your conclusion, just look at the consolidation by the massive Ag-corps owned by big Pharma. Monsanto's purchase from Bayer is cause for extreme concern, but Dupont and Novartis via Syngenta are another massive corp which in tandem with Nestle repersent a large segment of food and water in the World, as well as seed stock.
The barrier of entry is hard, depending on which crop and partly why I got into Ag (biodynamic horticulture with an emphasis in hemp), but I'm proud to say that we have solved that problem in the US.
As for the price of food, we have never had cheaper food, actually and I'd argue this is holding back many more to enter the sector--prior to COVID we were making amazing progress in making more young, first time (small) farmers.
With that said, we are in a much better place then when I started all of this back in 2008, where farmer's markets were fringe and tech money flowing into a company like whole Foods was unthinkable, so I'm bowing out and letting the younger bucks take the helm and eagerly anticipate better results then what my generation did.