COMPETITION LAW AS AN INSTRUMENT FOR THE RIGHT TO FOOD

Competition law has too often been applied in food markets through a narrow focus on consumer prices and affordability. A broader interpretation could also consider how market concentration affects nutrition, farmers, workers, sustainability, resilience and other essential dimensions of the right to adequate food. 

Reciently, we had the pleasure of inviting Olivier De Schutter to join one of the regular meetings of FAO’s Right to Food Team and share his views on the current state of the right to food, the main challenges ahead and the priorities that should guide future action. Olivier shared many insightful and stimulating ideas. One of them particularly resonated with me because it is an issue I have been reflecting on for some time: how competition and antitrust law could be used more effectively as an instrument to advance the right to food. This blog brings together some initial reflections inspired by that discussion. 

Competition law in both the European Union and the United States has traditionally assessed concentration in food markets through a relatively narrow question: does it lead to higher consumer prices? This approach has helped protect affordability, but it is insufficient from a right to food perspective. The right to adequate food is not limited to access to cheap calories. It also includes nutritional adequacy, availability, sustainability, dignity, participation and accountability. 

Yet competition authorities have generally treated affordability as the main, and sometimes the only, relevant public interest concern. This limitation is increasingly problematic because food systems have become highly concentrated across seeds, fertilizers, agrochemicals, agricultural machinery, commodity trading, processing, logistics and retail. 

A small number of firms now exercise considerable influence over what food is produced, how it is produced, who can participate in food markets and what consumers eventually find on supermarket shelves. The central assumption of conventional antitrust policy is that concentration may be acceptable as long as prices remain low. 

However, low prices do not necessarily mean that the right to food is being realized. Food may remain affordable while becoming less nutritious, less diverse, more environmentally damaging or increasingly dependent on poorly paid and precarious labor. Market concentration may also weaken the position of farmers and small-scale producers, who often face only a limited number of buyers and therefore have little capacity to negotiate fair prices or contractual conditions. 

This is especially relevant in relation to buyer power. Large retailers and processors may use their dominant position to impose low farm-gate prices, delayed payments, exclusivity clauses and the transfer of commercial risks to producers. Consumer prices may remain stable, while farmers’ incomes may decline and rural livelihoods become increasingly fragile. From a right to food perspective, this is not a secondary issue. Many food producers are themselves vulnerable to poverty, food insecurity and exclusion. 

Concentration may also affect nutrition. Large food companies may have strong incentives to prioritize highly profitable products with long shelf lives, intensive marketing and standardized formulations. This can increase the availability of inexpensive ultra-processed foods while reducing dietary diversity and the market space available for fresh, local or culturally appropriate foods. Competition law rarely considers whether mergers or dominant market structures reinforce unhealthy food environments, even though such effects are directly relevant to the adequacy dimension of the right to food. 

Labour conditions must also be taken into account. Powerful buyers can place intense pressure on suppliers to reduce costs, and these savings are often achieved through low wages, informal employment, unsafe conditions or the exploitation of migrant workers. A food product may therefore be cheap because part of its real cost has been transferred to workers. Antitrust analysis that looks only at the final retail price risks ignoring these wider human rights consequences. 

Highly concentrated food systems may also be less resilient. Recent pandemics, wars, transport disruptions, fertilizer shortages and climate-related shocks have shown how dependence on a limited number of suppliers can create systemic vulnerabilities. Competition policy should therefore consider whether greater diversity of firms, producers and supply channels would strengthen food security and reduce exposure to future crises. 

Environmental sustainability is equally relevant. Concentrated markets may reinforce production models based on monocultures, heavy chemical use, standardized seeds and long supply chains. These systems may deliver short-term efficiencies, but they can undermine biodiversity, soil health and the long-term capacity to produce food. Since the right to food includes sustainability for present and future generations, these impacts should not remain outside competition analysis. 

Many countries already possess legal and institutional tools that could support a broader approach. EU competition law under Articles 101 and 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, together with merger control rules, can address exclusionary conduct, abuse of dominance and structural concentration. In the United States, antitrust policy has recently paid greater attention to monopsony, labour markets, innovation and market structure. These developments show that competition law is not inevitably limited to immediate consumer prices. A right to food approach would not require abandoning traditional antitrust analysis. 

It would require complementing it. In food-related cases, authorities should assess whether mergers, agreements or dominant practices may affect affordability, nutritional quality, food diversity, farmers’ livelihoods, labour rights, environmental sustainability and the resilience of food systems. These considerations should be especially important where markets concern essential goods and where concentration creates power over producers, workers and consumers simultaneously. 

Food is not an ordinary commodity. It is essential to life, health, dignity and social stability. Competition policy should therefore move beyond the narrow objective of protecting cheap food and begin protecting food systems capable of realizing the right to adequate food.