In this Food Thinkers seminar, Professor Jennifer Clapp explores how growing corporate concentration has become a dominant trend in food systems, including the farm inputs sector. The talk will highlight the complex drivers of concentration as it has unfolded over the past century, as well as the types of power that concentration confers to the dominant firms in the agrifood sector, including policy, technology, and economic advantages. The social and ecological impacts of corporate power, including implications for justice and wealth distribution, and the kinds of policy responses that are required to address them, will also be outlined.

The talk will be followed by an online Q&A session.

Jennifer Clapp is a Professor and Canada Research Chair in Global Food Security and Sustainability in the School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability at the University of Waterloo. She is a member of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food). From 2019-2023, she served on the Steering Committee of the High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE-FSN) of the United Nations Committee on World Food Security (CFS) and was Vice-Chair of that body from 2021-2023. Her latest book is Titans of Industrial Agriculture: How a Few Giant Corporations Came to Dominate the Farm Sector and Why it Matters (MIT Press, 2025).