The declining farmers' wages behind our food system

Monopoly or Oligopoly? 
Under the system fo capitalism, the U.S. always have a monopoly problem with one giant company controls the market. However, this is not a precise definition to the U.S. market. Our market system is dominated by oligopoly. In oligopoly, several companies control the market and set prices based on the performance of the other companies. This can be considered more dangerous to our society because few companies can control our market, deciding how much our customers paid or what products we can purchase. Sometimes, it seems like we have many choices in buying different types of products. In reality, these products all shared by the same company.

Specific case: danger behind oligopoly in the U.S. food system 

"Just five companies account for almost half of supermarket food sales in the United States. [...] Just four companies provide us with 79 percent of our beef, 65 percent of our pork, and 57 percent of our poultry." 

According to the professor on CSRwire's blog Talkback, the U.S. food system is dominated by few companies, regulating our access to get food. Under the system, oligopoly companies are price makers, deciding how much our customers need to purchase their necessities. Companies know that customers have to buy the necessities and they can decide different price for different customers in different areas, earning the most profitable benefits.

In addition, oligopoly companies have greatly threaten farmers from earning good amount of wages.

"Over the last decade retail meat prices have risen more than 40 percent but during that same time, gross farm income for small- and medium-sized hog and cattle farmers fell by 32 percent. Seventy-one percent of chicken farmers live below the federal poverty line."

From the recent income report, we can see that farmers have been greatly controlled by oligopoly companies. Because individuals cannot compete with the giant companies, farmers have to sign the contract with oligopoly companies and only sell poultry to those companies. Oligopoly companies regulate how many and what weight of poultry they need. They also pay little wages to individual farmers. This is why the U.S. market have relative lower pricing for meat. In reality, the food profit is still very huge.

Calling for Anti-Choice Farm Bill, Eaters' Bill of Rights
In 2008, congress instructed the Department of Agriculture to rewrite the rule for regulating the food market, hoping to restore the fairness and competition in livestock and poultry production.

In 2012, people are calling for eaters' bill of rights, knowing how our food is grown and proceed.


References:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/csr/2012/08/06/choice-at-the-supermarket-is-our-food-system-the-perfect-oligopoly/#50eeb156334e

https://www.csrwire.com/blog/posts/454-freedom-of-choice-at-the-supermarket-not