How does increased market concentration affect market performance?
To reduce the high costs of creating a GMO and getting it through the regulatory process into commercialized production, the large biotech companies increasingly have become vertically and horizontally integrated. While some agribusinesses are primarily horizontally integrated (such as John Deere, which produces basically one product machinery but for many different uses), other companies are increasingly vertically integrated (such as Perdue, which owns hatcheries, feedmills, production and breeder operations, and processing plants). In the global food system, large multinationals that are both horizontally and vertically integrated are becoming more commonplace, such as Philip Morris and ADM (Archer Daniel Midlands). By taking on more and more of the marketing functions for more and more products, these large agribusinesses control much of the flow of moving products from the farm to the food table. From the consumer’s perspective, all this integration in the food chain may lead to a
