Ep20: Phil Howard on Corporate Consolidation

Episode summary

In the first Feed episode about power we speak with Phil Howard, author of Concentration and Power in the Food System, a book that asks "who controls what we eat?" We dive right into big questions, asking whether Phil Howard’s ideal food future is compatible with capitalism. We also talk about the rise of organics, how is power distributed within corporations, how a US farmer’s prospects about staying a small and diversified operation has diminished over time, and how food corporations intent on growing cope with the fact that human stomachs remain the same size.

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About Phil Howard

Phil Howard is a professor at Michigan State University in the Department of Community Sustainability, a member of IPES-Food, the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable food systems, and the author of Concentration and Power in the Food System that investigates who controls what we eat?

Phil teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in Community, Food and Agriculture, as well as a graduate course in Political Ecology. His research focuses on the 'food system,' which involves all of the steps required to produce food and get it to our plates–from farming and processing to distribution and consumption. Phil's work is unified by three main questions: 1) What changes are occurring, 2) What are the impacts of these changes on communities, and 3) What can communities do to respond positively to these changes.