SWOH | Midwestfeeder - 5/21/2025 10:49
With all the consolidation in equipment manufacturers, implement dealers, coops, seed and chemical companies etc etc is it time to break up some of these corporations in order to promote competition? What are the negatives of antitrust if any?
I’m not sure how they could do that on equipment manufacturers in general, there’s still more than one equipment manufacturer. But like the cotton picker example…what’s preventing somebody else with coming up with another picker now? I’m not sure how they would antitrust that…nobody is preventing another cotton picker…just nobody else is doing one. Unless I’m wrong on that.
My belief is that the mess the livestock side got into is what rapidly declined the small farms and in turn rapidly declined the small dealers and small co-ops. Less producers is less demand. And the internet. I can order parts online and have them here quicker and less shipping cost than my local Deere dealer can. As much as I don’t like saying that. The go big or go home mentality of the 70’s, the mess in the 80’s, the hog debacle in the late 90’s/early 00’s, and the internet is what killed the little guys around here…farm and farm related businesses. I don’t know how you antitrust evolution when there are still alternatives…just not the alternatives you want. |
Is it time for more antitrust?
