Is the battle over who controls and owns agricultural data one of the most important—and least discussed—fights in 21st-century farming? In this conversation, Jennifer Clapp (prof at the University of Waterloo and member of IPES-Food) explores the deep ties between fossil fuels and our food system, tracing their influence from fertilizers and pesticides to farm mechanization and digital agriculture. She unpacks how fossil-fueled inputs have shaped—and continue to shape—modern farming. 

Jennifer Clapp is a Tier I Canada Research Chair in Global Food Security and Sustainability and Professor in the School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability at the University of Waterloo, Canada. Dr. Clapp is currently a member of IPES-Food and a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the UN Food Systems Coordination Hub. 

Her most recent books include Food, 3rd Edition (Polity, 2020), Speculative Harvests: Financialization, Food, and Agriculture (with S. Ryan Isakson, Fernwood Press, 2018), Hunger in the Balance: The New Politics of International Food Aid (Cornell University Press, 2012), Paths to a Green World: The Political Economy of the Global Environment, 2nd Edition (with Peter Dauvergne, MIT Press, 2011), and Corporate Power in Global Agrifood Governance (co-edited with Doris Fuchs, MIT Press, 2009). Her newest book, published with MIT Press (2025), is titled Titans of Industrial Agriculture: How a Few Giant Corporations Came to Dominate the Farm Sector and Why It Matters. 

Some Recent Digital and Biological Acquisitions of the Major Agricultural Input Firms

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Major Mergers and Acquisitions in the Chemical Pesticide Industry late 1800s to Today 

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Fate of the Four Dominant Hybrid Seed Companies after the 1970s 

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Major Mergers and Acquisitions in the Farm Machinery Sector 1830s-Today

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Major Mergers and Acquisitions in the Fertilizer Sector 1880s-Today

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The images above are shared with permission of the author and publisher.