The Lacuna Project

lacuna (n.) a gap in a record where something should be

Independent research. Not affiliated with any government, agency, or company.

Agency

Federal Trade Commission

Findings that rest on exhibits naming this entity

  • AGR-5.1: USDA data show that the four largest packers' share of steer and heifer slaughter rose from 36 percent in 1980 to 85 percent in 2019, and their share of hog slaughter rose from 34 percent to 67 percent. In 2019 the four largest firms held 53 percent of broiler chicken and 55 percent of turkey production.
  • AGR-5.2: USDA's Economic Research Service attributes the rise in beef and pork packing concentration mostly to larger plants and says mergers played a limited role. ERS also reports that the farm-to-wholesale beef price spread doubled between 2015 and 2019. GAO estimated that fed cattle prices in 2013 to 2015 may have been about 9 percent higher in areas with less packer concentration than in areas with more, and stated that this evidence alone does not imply anticompetitive or improper behavior.
  • AGR-5.4: Pilgrim's Pride pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to fix prices and rig bids for broiler chicken products and was sentenced to a criminal fine of $107,923,572 on February 23, 2021. ERS reports that individual defendants in the DOJ broiler cases were acquitted in jury trials. Tyson's filing states that the first civil broiler antitrust jury trial ended in a verdict for the defendants.
  • AGR-5.10: Two seed companies accounted for 72 percent of planted U.S. corn acres and 66 percent of soybean acres in 2018-20. USDA's 2023 seed competition report counts Bayer, Corteva, ChemChina and BASF as owning 95 percent of corn, 84 percent of soybean and 74 percent of cotton plant intellectual property.
  • AGR-5.11: In 2017 and 2018 antitrust agencies cleared ChemChina-Syngenta, Dow-DuPont and Bayer-Monsanto only with divestitures. DOJ called the roughly $9 billion Bayer divestiture to BASF the largest merger divestiture ever required by the United States.
  • AGR-5.13: The average price farmers paid for seed rose 270 percent from 1990 to 2020, against 56 percent for commodity prices and 463 percent for crops grown mostly with genetically modified traits. ERS states that the evidence is mixed on whether concentration caused the rise.
  • AGR-5.14: The Supreme Court held unanimously in Bowman v. Monsanto (2013) that patent exhaustion does not let a farmer reproduce patented seed by planting and harvesting without the patent holder's permission. The FTC and five states sued Deere in January 2025 alleging it withheld repair tools, and in July 2026 filed a proposed settlement requiring Deere to give farmers and independent repair shops the repair resources it gives dealers for ten years.
  • REL-5.6: On 6 March 2020 the Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Trade Commission sent a joint warning letter to The Jim Bakker Show about silver products promoted for COVID-19. The letter states FDA's determination that the products are unapproved new drugs. The records found show no FTC court action.

Exhibits naming this entity

  • Exhibit 458 6 March 2020. U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Federal Trade Commission: Warning Letter to The Jim Bakker Show (MARCS-CMS 604820)
  • Exhibit 608 June 2023. USDA Economic Research Service (MacDonald, Dong and Fuglie): Concentration and Competition in U.S. Agribusiness (Economic Information Bulletin 256)
  • Exhibit 638 8 July 2026. Federal Trade Commission: FTC, States Secure Settlement with Deere & Company, Advancing Farmers' Right to Repair