No. 33, 21 August 2025

What’s the top-line?

The concentration of power in the food system, in the hands of a small number of very large agribusinesses, presents an opportunity to transition the food system both swiftly and at scale. However, the concentration of vested interests and systemic resilience to change, is locking the food system into business-as usual. Changing the rules of the game is now critical to unlock change – ultimately, only governments (supported by other actors) can do this and lead the transformation.

MESSAGE 1: Global agribusiness concentration presents an opportunity for large scale and rapid transformation of food

📈 Global agribusiness power is concentrated in a small number of very large companies:

• Seeds & agrochemicals: 4 companies = 50% of seeds and 60% of agrochems
• Farm machinery: 4 companies = 40% of global sales
• Trading: 10 companies = 40% of the market
• Food & drink processing: 10 = 34% of sales
• Retail: 10 retailers = 10% of sales

*To see which companies dominate, see page 8 of the report.

✋🏼 HOWEVER. This concentration presents an OPPORTUNITY; if large agribusinesses were to change, the system would change with them. Agribusiness has a big role to play in transforming the food system at scale and at pace.

⛓️ But political and market structures, or ‘system lock-ins’, are stifling this potential and entrenching current practices and behaviours. This is making meaningful change very difficult, despite increasing political will and overwhelming scientific evidence of the need to act.

⚖️ To unlock this, GOVERNMENTS MUST CHANGE THE RULES. Firstly, through signalling a political commitment to transformative, system-wide change and, secondly, through building a strong business case for a sustainable transition. Support from intergovernmental organizations, financial institutions, the private sector and civil society, will be key.

MESSAGE 2: But three major lock-ins are stopping food system transformation

👉🏼 Read the report here 👈🏼

As Covid and other major global events have shown, the functioning of the food system may lack resilience – in terms of food price volatility and local availability – but its inherent structure is resilient to change.

The food system is ‘locked’ in a number of important ways that make changing its structure risky from political, social and market perspectives. That creates barriers to a sustainable transition both for agribusinesses and for other food system actors. The three major system lock-ins are;

1️⃣ The cheaper food paradigm

This is entrenched in current political norms and market structures and incentives. Policies, regulations and legislation are shaped by the cheaper food paradigm, an entrenched political commitment to meeting growing demand through an ever-increasing supply of food that is cheap to produce and cheap to buy, but costly for the environment and human health in the long term.

2️⃣ Market consolidation and vested interests 

The result in part of the cheaper food paradigm and drive for efficiency through scale – market structures encourage increasing concentration along global food value chains and investment path dependencies that incentivize input-intensive and environmentally harmful forms of agriculture. This has created a business environment in which efficiency and scale are valued more highly than good environmental stewardship. The concentration of power has led to significant vested interests among incumbent market powers to maintain the status quo.

3️⃣ Investment path dependencies 

Born from decades of investment in technologies, techniques and practices that increase productivity and maximize profits. These dependencies trap businesses, farmers, policymakers and citizens in unsustainable, unhealthy patterns of production and consumption. Those businesses that seek to embrace more sustainable practices face significant financial and operational barriers to doing so, while those that continue with business-as-usual tend to thrive.

I’d recommend page 16 for a great diagram that explains how these manifest more fully. The pages following this go into more detail on each lock-in.

MESSAGE 3: Governments need to ‘changing the rules of the game’ – here’s how

The largest agribusinesses have enormous potential to catalyse system transformation, but they cannot be expected to wield this potential in a food system that incentivises unsustainable production.

There must be acknowledgement and exploration by advocates of food system transformation of the degree to which other food system actors—chief among them governments—set the guardrails within which those businesses operate. This is also the wider system dynamics. Key steps:

1️⃣ Signal political commitment to transformative, system-wide change 

If the agribusiness operating space is to change in a meaningful way, governments will need to rapidly raise their ambition to change food systems and food system policy:

• Articulate a clear vision and pathway for food system transformation
• Create the political space for change through greater transparency

2️⃣ Build the business case for transformation

• Rebalance financial incentives, including deep reform of agricultural subsidies
• Account for nature through true cost-accounting
• Strengthen regulatory options beyond finance, e.g. integrate environmental outcomes into trade policy
• Raising the costs of business as usual

👉🏼 Read the report here 👈🏼