battle. we are not investor neutral or competition neutral and we are going to continue to lean in and events like this remind me of that. >> on behalf of the department of justice and federal trade commission i want to thank this extraordinary group and the nation's leaders hearing directly from the sources and hearing directly from them as to why competition policy is so important to the work we do. thank you again on behalf of both of our agencies. [applause]

everyone worries about food prices and who bears the brunt. there's a lot of evidence that concentration and food supply chains contribute. as a result the federal trade commission have brought cases

ranging from investigations into pesticide manufacturers, food distribution processing restaurants as well as grocery store retailers. today the panel will focus on potentially anticompetitive conduct and mergers up and down. the senior advisor for the fair and competitive market agriculture and the deputy assistant the department of justice and the chair of the commission in india and chief of the antitrust division for the attorney general. to get ourselves started, i want to start with this top-level

question. the covid-19 pandemic taught us some hard lessons about the importance of resilience in the supply chains and so i would like to start with a broad question of now post pandemic what are your jurisdictions focused on. >> in the last six months to a year we filed suit against a company that facilitates information exchange among the processors and bringing the intersection. there is a wonderful slide that promotes product where you've got people pulling the rope

together and that pretty well encapsulates. manufacturers alleging the loyalty programs end of the associated rebates are anticompetitive and exclude generic pesticide manufacturers with the additional states we've also been investigating the pricing that resolved in the pandemic and we've got a couple of investigations going on into the various agricultural inputs. >> good morning, everybody. a huge thanks to the doj for putting this important event together. it's a pleasure to be here for the third time. so, not surprisingly the food industry or food supply chain has been a key area of focus for

some time and certainly 24, 25 in the annual plan we have said we are going to prioritize investigations in this particular area including retail, grocery and the food supply sector generally. food inflation in canada throughout the pandemic was an issue that truly galvanized canadians to call for more competition in our economy we saw grocery prices increasing at the fastest rate in a 40 years outpacing inflation in the country. so let me talk about a couple of things that we have done or are doing. last year we engaged in and published in june retail grocery

market studies. that was timely given the concerns of the food prices and we came out quite strongly that canada was in desperate need of more competition in the sector. for a variety of reasons including high levels of concentration that had been increasing in the whole food supply chain. we had been looking over the last five years very carefully at the mergers and the food supply chain and in fact we have one right now between two companies that are sort of on the table. we are also working with international partners, people here today and the supply chain group and in investigation going

on. last summer we got a criminal guilty plea in that area from one of canada's big bread manufacturers, bakers $50 million fine for price-fixing over an extensive period of time and i suppose the last thing, and i know i'm probably burning up too much time and it ties to the last panel, which was excellent is we have tremendous public restraints on competition and the food sector in canada in addition to throughout our economy, and we are advocating and focusing our efforts tremendously on the advocacy side to tackle the regulatory barriers. we have trade barriers and a supply management agricultural supply management system. so the bureau is kind of all over the map trying to tackle

these issues. >> the shock of the pandemic, thank you, commissioner, for having me. the shock of the pandemic really brought home for everyone across the food and agricultural supply chain just how problematic the bottleneck concentration and lack of competition has become and how that harms everyone across the industry from the farmer whose place of cattle has collapsed to the worker who can't get beef on the shelves to the working family that can't get beef on the shelves to everybody in between. so, we have been taking like the secretary mentioned on the last panel a whole of government approach to this and there are i will put them into three big buckets. number one, we have been taking

our supply chain resiliency tools congress granted and investing a billion dollars in the processing capacity to increase the choice that farmers and ranchers have at the local level and more channels to the consumers in the grocery store. we've been investing $900 million in the domestic sustainable fertilizer capacity and more to support the transition from the concentrated system that is extremely efficient and a short-term way but not resilient to the shock and not efficient over a long-term way. so major investments we've been making on behalf of the american people. a second major area has been the revitalization of our antitrust fair market regulatory enforcement toolkit and real appreciation and credit to the partners and department of

justice sitting with me as well as our partners and of the attorneys genital helping us do this where we have some old tools in fact the secretary mentioned them. they give the authority to help protect farmers, ranchers, workers all across that livestock supply chain and we are modernizing shining a spotlight on contracting practices to empower prohibiting retaliation and we've got a number of other rules coming to enhance the ability to tackle unfair practices across the sector. the third area usda and this is a huge credit to the council and executive order, we do a lot and if we have to think about how to align our program to that

competition mission this includes for example we've stood up a liaison to help make sure that we can be the farmers voice within usda and across federal government at the patent office and other places to make sure the seed structure is working in ways that support competition and fairness to farmers and we've been doing more to align the consumer labeling so the product in many ways inspired by ftc aligns with what the consumer thinks when they walk into a store. so a lot of we are doing and a lot more to be done because although inflation has come down dramatically, 2% year on year and 11% high in 2022, we've got to learn the lesson that the bottleneck is something we cannot let sustain.

>> thank you and it's always a pleasure to come back. my colleagues won't like this but it was home for two decades of my career. i would say what we have learned from the pandemic is what any farmer or rancher or anyone else in the agricultural industry would have been saying for 20 years which is we made a bit in the 80s and we lost. what, i mean, by that, there was this idea that the key was if we were the most efficient agricultural producers in the world, experts would explode and everyone would be better off. you look back i think our farmers are the best in the world and our ranchers are the best in the world. numbers are incredibly successful in experts.

but somehow none of that seems to have benefited the people who actually do the work, the ranchers, the factory workers, the farmers. and that's really important because when problems occur in agriculture, they have follow-on effects unlike any other industry. i grew up in wisconsin. there was a period in the late teens where wisconsin, world best dairy farmers was losing to dairy farms a day. when i go home to wisconsin and we go up to northwest or northeast wisconsin where the dairy industry is, it doesn't look anything like it use to. it looks like a post-apocalyptic series on netflix. when we get things wrong and i want to be clear i'm not saying,

antitrust law is about economic growth directly but when we get things wrong in agriculture, it has a follow-on effect. but it's hard to answer the second part of the question because when i look at what we have been doing, everything. we have criminal price-fixing cases in the poultry industry, we have information sharing cases affecting both workers in the plant and the selling of the ultimate product in the marketplace. we have concerns with right to repair, abuse of intellectual property, exclusionary conduct. we've done all of that in the last two years or i guess three and a half years.

and so it's kind of everything. >> looking at the scenario a significant share of the expenditure is on food and 45% of the people in the country are dependent. so when this pandemic began and we had to lock down, that was a very big hit for the majority of the population in the country and that's when the government started thinking in terms of expanding the safety net so we had a very big program launched by the government to be able to provide food to everybody, and that covered a bit 800 million in the country provided free food items which was essential. that program brought forward to

aspects. one is food subsidies, something that was being looked at, that also came to an end. we needed to have adequate stock and whatever we needed to provide to the farmers for them to be able to produce, we were going to continue to support them. that is one major aspect. a second, there was a big push in the infrastructure and in terms of food harvest technology how can we ensure the crops and food grains that we lose because of improper storage or transport, how can we eliminate that? that has been the focus in this area and we still continue to have the same russians, so that program has not come to an end. food prices are going up so the focus is now on these aspects how we build up infrastructure

and ensure that we don't have any post harvest losses. >> let me start by saying the comments i make are my own and are not necessarily reflecting the opinions. with regards to what our office is kind of doing, i think i can put it into buckets, like what's going on in and tag and then what's going on more consumer facing. so in agriculture, doing i guess investigations where it's bringing cases that address issues or monopolies, so to the extent that producers need markets that are not impacted by anticompetitive activities, we

will be investigating those. whether it be chicken farmers or soybean farmers or what have you, we will be looking at those markets and also markets for input, so providing investigative issues were efforts where say for instance you have seeds or fertilizer or pesticide markets that may be impacted so we will be looking at those markets as well and making sure that if enforcement actions need to be taken that we are involved. also, the federal trade commission in eight states plus the sisters of columbia have filed action to join the number

two and number one. so those are pocketbook issues and one of the things that i think we all know because we'll eat and so grocery issues are top of line and something that my attorney general has been very vocal about into something that he has encouraged my office to be involved in. those are two issues that we have kind of focused on or are focusing on post pandemic, and agriculture is a key market in maryland i think of somewhere around 3 billion in 2022 in terms of cash. it's about 1% it's a very important market for us. to make sure the markets are working efficiently without

harm. >> we will have to look back a little bit and if a couple of you might share if there's a particular case or investigation that have been emblematic of your jurisdictions approaching to the food supply chain, i would like to start with you, chair. >> this is the investigations you've done recently. one of the interesting cases we looked at to the committee, that is an important aspect. many look at protein, there is a focus on that in the distribution system you get rice, beets, sugar, basic commodities. that became a cause of concern

enabling people. this matter was investigated and we did have a finding that said they are in some ways because they are giving out information with regards and it's enabling the producers to charge so they were required from that activity to also have a competition compliance program where they would encourage people to adopt not just anticompetitive so that is one recent action that happened. >> we are doing a lot on rulemaking, so i'm going to say i'm going to give a rulemaking

example though i think for some of the cases i'm also extremely proud of we've done a number of landmark cases. the two rulemaking as we finalized are important for our sector. the first one is provides transparency and when you think about this sector, multiple people probably don't know this, it's very big in maryland, but they are not about and sold on the market. the last one in 1968 were 69 the chicken company owns the chicken all the way from genetics to the grocery store shelves and the only place where it doesn't is the stage that the farmer, the poultry grower that takes on the loans and owns the farm and the

land and they've generally been paid for on a payment system that would reword the performance relative to the how they do versus their peers and how efficient they are turning the seed into chicken poundage. the system has the vertical integration on that particular system has been rights for abuses over a number of years and we put in place one that shines a spotlight in some ways on the franchise rule to give those farmers a much better visibility into what are the real range they are taking on and one of the differences in the input they are doing both to empower them and also shine a spotlight on the market that we think has a real prophylactic affect as well and also a final

rule to prohibit discrimination on the basis of who the farmer is as well as cooperatives retaliation for reporting to the government for exercising contract rights, for seeking to negotiate with an officer. these two rules are important and we have more in the pipeline to deliver meaningful on the ground change that our farmers and ranchers need. >> i like sitting next to andy so i might just give my three minutes back to him. i do want to take a little trip through history because i think it's important to understand what's going on now. this isn't the first time we've faced a serious questions of power and agricultural markets

and market power. way back at the end of the 19th century, the u.s. government tried to enforce against the major meat processors. at the time the five largest accounted for 80% of all meat processed in the united states. by the way today it is for that account for the 85% and one of the things they were struggling with is the courts seemed very skeptical to the issue and i know that's some of us have any experience with so what happened? it's one of the reasons why the government created the federal trade commission. the first report the federal trade commission did, massive three volume juggernaut was on meatpacking the same day they filed that report, the department of justice filed a

critical dissent degree that had the impact of helping to de- concentrated the industry but congress wasn't even done then. in 1921, not the most progressive liberal congress to sit in the united states congress. nevertheless they passed the law and if you look at the act, somebody looked down and thought about every bad decision and tried to write around it. the resulting relationship of all the forces and cooperation across the government was incredibly successful. by the 1970s they controlled 20 or 30% of the market. so we know what the solution is and it requires a whole of

government approach. thinking through with the cases brought we will quickly summarize them but i want to stress two things. think about who we are working with and what part of the food chain we are addressing. one of the major issues they face is right to repair. it's a very concentrated industry and the manufacturers make it much harder to fix their equipment so for a farmer, it's exactly what they have always done. they brought a private suit to challenge the policy. the department of justice weighed in at the amicus brief and the seventh circuit agreed and reversed the dismissal.

in my entire life of speaking i never got an applause line like i got for saying the department of justice filed a brief agreeing with farmers on the right to repair. when i'm speaking at the national farmers union we had cases alleging that workers and poultry processing plants had reduced wages because of information sharing exchange going on for 20 years. we also had the case dealing with the state of minnesota. that information some of my colleagues talked about we brought not one but two cases. the second involved these chicken growers who were in a very weak bargaining position and faced the processor who said on top of every other way we control the market, we will

actually penalize you if you take a competitive offer and leave. finally, that was critical and finally last week or the week before, they not only announced they were banding their merger but they also nicely blamed the department of justice and we will take that blame any day of the week. >> i would love to turn next to labor and start with you. this is an area of key interest. we are focused on how the corporate consolidation is affecting wages and the impact on workers ability. i would love to give an opportunity to highlight how the

cases and investigations are looking. >> i don't have a whole lot i can say publicly but we addressed it in the agricultural markets and we've been taking a look at some of these issues. i do want to give credit to the washington state attorney general for the offices attention in an entirely different end of the food supply chain multiple agreements and fast food franchise contracts where i think there's over 200 they've scrubbed those agreements from and that is something we are proud of them having done. >> i would echo maryland was

involved in bringing a settlement with a number of fast food companies, duncan, five guys, a few others, seven in total where there were no agreements in their franchise so we talk about the food system, it goes from seed to plate and those are issues that we tend to focus on because it's important for our state economies. we've also looked into i want to say looked into but there are issues regarding poultry workers and others publicly available information. there's a case in the district court of maryland there's been

settlements where private plaintiffs sought redress and are in the process of opinion redress. we looked at these matters and take them seriously and will investigate matters involving labor wage fixing, we take that seriously to see how they may be used anti-competitively. labor markets are antitrust markets. not separate and apart but they can be markets where the

anticompetitive conduct is happening and as i mentioned a bit ago, one of the markets is beyond the union labor market so that's important for many of our bosses and something that we have warranted and we put unlimited resources. >> i would be remiss if i didn't say one thing i'm particularly proud of having worked together with the department of justice is issuing guidelines that directly address behavior as you indicated that antitrust law covers for years and years but the lines squarely address that.

you mentioned the impact on wages and i want to give you a minute to talk about that and anything else that comes to mind is a prayer ready. >> this is an incredibly important issue for the department of justice you can tell that by the resources committee. we have pursued criminal price-fixing cases involving poultry workers. we have one conviction that every court has said there's no problem with the theory. we've established when employers agree on wages and as long as you prove it is a criminal violation. the other thing is i believe you are talking about the case which i talk about a little bit but let me expand it's an excellent

example because we look at it from an antitrust angle and they eventually referred the case to us and then requires them rescind the contract and requires them to pay the cost of damages the chicken growers actually suffered so if they had legal fees i think it was a groundbreaking case and reflects the interest on the workers and

the ability to coordinate with other agencies. >> how important these cases are from our perspective that showing up and bringing the cases has an incredibly important determinant of value. i don't know if it was noticed but these are the first two cases that the department of justice had brought and that to send us a very strong message that the whole of government is working, that the antitrust law and fair market laws are operating on behalf of farmers and ranchers and working families across the food supply

chain because that is the kind of deterrence that is going to make it so that we don't have to bring as many of the cases you will have behavioral changes out there in the market so i want to thank the department of justice and for helping to sort of make that point. >> if i could take a moment to tell an interesting story in terms of labor, grocery, wage fixing. during the pandemic, many of our grocery retail started and as we moved through the pandemic at a certain point several of them around the same time announced that they were stopping hero pay and this obviously raised some suspicions and concerns of what

was going on, parliamentarians got quite intrigued and called in the ceos of a few of our large grocery retailers and they said i talked to this ceo about it and i told them as a courtesy i was going to cancel it next week. at the same time while this whole thing was unfolding, people were turning to the competition bureau saying what are you doing you should be charging with criminal activity. we said 2009 they amended the price-fixing provisions and took out the word purchase so we didn't have the ability to bring criminal charges for my side. this motivated the parliament so much that by 2022 in a very

short period of time they drafted, put the bill in front of the parliament and added very specific wage fixing because of the whole story related to the grocery sector and removal of hero pay for people who legitimately deserve did during the days of the pandemic. >> we've been focusing on traditional enforcement. i would like to take a moment to talk about some of the nontraditional tools. is that the jurisdictions they have at the disposal? we had an interesting study.

the onion price starts going up rapidly. a market study done by the commission of what is happening in terms of the prices. so what is the reason for the subtle enhancement. that's when the commission gives recommendations that the government needs to look at how we are going to manage what they are going to do with

improvements and let things like that and on a large scale how will you ensure that doesn't take place so that is the recommendations. of course now again similar demands are coming after this pandemic so the commission should start price monitoring and the key infrastructure. so that is something we are looking at how do we go about doing some kind of price monitoring without doing the market study is of course. >> in terms of advocacy as i mentioned last year we published the results of the retail

grocery market study where we found a significant lack of competition and are independent grocers were finding it more and more challenging to compete because of very widespread property controls in place and that are authorized under provincial legislation. also independent grocers had to rely on those that control wholesale to the greatest extent in the country. international entry would be very beneficial for canada. we have examples of that, costco and walmart have had a positive impact but even with that we

still have tremendous concentration the last 30 years where we used to have eight big domestic players and now down to three so not surprisingly the advocacy was very timely. there was a tremendous amount of interest and we made a series of recommendations to governments at all levels in terms of how they could address these with a serious lack of competition in the retail grocery sector and we are seeing now some responses to that including a bill that was passed in the parliament before the end of 2023 that put in a tool for us to address and also putting the tool quite heavily where we had the power to compel

information during market study because once again the grocery companies how do we worded they were not fully cooperative with our requests for information to be provided voluntarily and this came up to parliament. so we are using that other side of the house to try to achieve the procompetitive in that specific area. >> your answer reminds me of a phrase that remarkably hasn't come up which is food deserts. i suspect everyone on stage cares about this profoundly and i wonder if you see the same a dynamic play out that we see here where independent grocers are far more likely to serve these communities and also different communities then do the major big boxes so the more likely to serve were rural

americans. do you see that in your work? >> these property controls play a big role. nobody else can come into this plasma and sell food. we are looking very carefully at these. it's public, we have an investigation going on into it but one of the things in the consideration is the creation of these and the harm of having these in place. it's something we are paying a

lot of attention to and the role they play in a couple of weeks. it's at the top of our radar. >> preparing for this topic and the restrictive covenants in the leasing of the former supermarket spaces which was intriguing to me that that would be something happening kind of across the board but i think there's quite a bit of literature on that and we've kind of utilized and considered. there are a number of food

deserts. there have been numbers of studies that have discussed that the maryland national parks and planning commission did a study. university of maryland has done studies, hopkins has done studies coming prince george's county is a significant focus. baltimore city is a significant. i think by some account nearly half and when you take into account it's something we use as a data point. another thing, the flip side of the food desert is when you

don't have access to grocery stores and fresh produce et cetera there is a proliferation of fast food restaurants, all kinds of processed unhealthy foods so you have a situation where you have a desert and a swamp and it's problematic to talk about health outcomes that related to these swamps. so that is something that i think also tying into the research and just being aware of what's going on in your space and jurisdiction it helps you to inform with things you decide to pursue because also they put priority instead of thinking of some of these things are now led by the program.

he's hearing from people in maryland but they think. they don't necessarily dictate how the decisions were made but they are definitely things that you can kind of put in your mental toolbox and decide how to allocate scarce resources in terms of enforcing. >> i have to say since i've been a commissioner, some of those difficult moments i've had is talking to folks in food deserts. two years ago we met with the tribal council and the dairy aisle they were talking about how there were 13-year-olds showing up at the emergency room with ulcers because they ran out of money and they could only food soda or chips into you had kids going to school and

hoarding food at lunch because they were the only ones who could bring home the food at the end of the day so i think it is such a horror and i think it is encouraging to know how much the people on the stage and in the audience are trying to tackle this issue. >> our friends have a new grant that states can apply for funding for. we are having a little conversations about what studies do we think are most interesting and are likely to bear fruit. we have a variety of efforts in the education on the advocacy front we testified in front of

the legislature last year. the legislature passed yesterday for farm equipment so we are continuing to have conversations with advocates. we also led a group of states in for the proposed rule on transparency between chicken processors and growers and we were glad to see that rule adopted. we also have developed a pretty robust. food markets included thinking

about competition as much as they can because a lot of their work is to get a contract that meets the needs of the states. sometimes competition is a secondary component for them. it's not front of mind. it's can i get somebody to fill this contract. what looks like a suspicious bid, what looks like. bringing our investigation where we have something exciting to announce. >> we have about eight minutes left and some change in the panel so i would like to close and just go across the panel starting with you and coming back down this way.

some of my favorite words price discrimination hasn't come up yet otherwise what are you looking forward to? >> something i've personally been working on the analog for the whole of government. in terms of talking to the division that talks were the protection division and kind of moving forward with our law

enforcement goals. >> we are focusing on artificial intelligence. but our focus now is prices. of course we see the spike and so our stance is people watch the live, be vigilant and alert and try to monitor the situation. >> thank you. michael? >> i would say expect more of

the same because if there's one thing i've learned it's that resources have no limitation. i think what you will see is more cooperation. minnesota was at the podium with the department of justice in the case we've mentioned. there is a synergy you will continue to see work with the antitrust division and looking at how to use to fix these problems more generally. if anything i've said, these are markets with a load of market power. there's lots of conduct that

looks like and we will continue to pursue the cases where we find them and do it aggressively. >> tremendous appreciation for that partnership. we have more rules coming and one of our advantages is to be able to look holistically. i want to flag three things for the audience. we will be doing more in the label space and have a raising claims review, no antibiotics, these are consumer protections under our labeling authorities but they have a big impact.

it's a very hard for a producer that's doing the right thing to compete. the second thing i want to flag is i want to mention price discrimination on that. we have a retail. packers. we are busy thinking about that, looking at that or how we make sure that there's market access

for the businesses that want to compete what can we do to open up that space so we have work coming in on that front. the figure to thing i want to underscore is the importance of rebuilding the institution. the division was 40% smaller by the number of people in 2020 an0 then it was in 2010. that is thanks to. we are using it as widely as we possibly can but it's a long-term effort to rebuild. it's a partnership with.

there's others out there and practice you might think of coming into joining with us or writing that next report and. >> i've already eluded to it, property control. finally, enforcing when it comes to a new provision that is specifically targeted and as a

final rule, thanks to the international competition community for the work we've been able to do for example the grocery market study and collaboration talking about issues common across the borders in multiple jurisdictions. so it is to continue to get up the learning curve faster so we will continue to do that going forward. >> i think i've already eluded to unspecified investigations and future market studies. i guess i want to say or acknowledge that among the states it is tighter than ever and cooperation between the state governments and federal

governments in the antitrust base has been unprecedented and i think it is continuing to get better. >> two rounds of gratitude i want to ask you to join me on, first is what's at stake. i shared about the visit to pine ridge and the other with of the secretary is another eye-opening meeting like that. i had corn growers and cattlemen of iowa and these are grown men and women with tears in their eyes talking about how they used to have a dozen and a half places to buy seed from and now they have two of them may become a two or three places to process their cattle and now they have one. the impact that has on them and their families and a number of down in the food chain is extraordinary so the efforts of that are being described are terrific and i'm grateful for them. everyone has been kind in thanking me for this.

i'm not the want to thank the office of international affairs. if you could join me in the round of applause for the department of justice, i would be grateful. [applause] and what is being called a defeat for speaker johnson the house blocked a bill reauthorizing the foreign intelligence surveillance act. weept the bill fell on a procedural boat 193-128. the current is set to expire on april 19th. nineteen republicans joined democrats to prevent it from moving forward. the anniversary