By Kayla Hartman

The US beef industry is squeezing the most it can out of its workers, suppliers and consumers. On one side are farmers, who face mounting debt and are amongst the hardest hit by shifts in the economy and increasing extreme weather events.  These pressures mean that people in the profession are two to five times more likely to die by suicide than the rest of the US population.

Then further down the value chain, you have the people processing the beef. These workers are being pressed by Big Ag’s constant efforts to increase the margin between costs and revenue. The result? Labor practices which increase the risk of injury and impose unfair deductions from workers’ payslips. In Colorado, these very reasons have pushed workers at a meat processing plant run by JBS – the largest meat processing company in the world – to vote in favour of a strike, with an overwhelming 99% of workers voting in support.

Finally, you have the consumer, who is being squeezed by increasing prices, like ground beef, which rose 51% from 2020 to 2025 amid ongoing claims around beef processors colluding to fix market prices. In early 2026, Tyson Foods and Cargill agreed to pay $87.5 million  as part of a beef price-fixing settlement that involved more than five beef processors in total.

Behind all of this sits an overlooked enabler: the banks and investors financing an increasingly concentrated and fragile meat system.

So how did the meat industry get to the point where farmers face a heavy mental health crisis, the largest meat processor is faced with growing dissent in its workforce, and millions of dollars are due in payments back to its customers?

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Beef’s Big Four and the Unsavory Reality of Agribusiness

The world of US beef is very small. Known as the Big Four, Cargill, Tyson Foods, JBS, and National Beef Packing Co control a staggering 85% of the US beef market as of 2019. These companies have almost no competition. But it wasn’t always like this; as the size of meat processing plants grew between the late 1970s and early 1990s, so did the concentration of the market, which was only 25% in 1977. 

To be clear, this market concentration heavily benefits these producers, and it benefits them handsomely. The Big Four make it hard for farmers to bargain for higher cattle prices because there are so few buyers to negotiate with. In fact, farmers are currently making historically low profits from their beef sales - in 2022 they earned 39 cents on every dollar spent on beef, a drop from 60 cents in the early 1970s. Similarly, if their processing plants make up a majority of the places their employees can work, they don’t have to provide competitive wages or benefits to retain workers. 

It wasn’t always like this. In 1980, the market share of the four largest firms combined was 36%. In 1995 that number skyrocketed to 81%. What happened? 

Loading image...The beef industry in the United States was seemingly born monopolistic. Though data in the late 1800s on market concentration is difficult to attain, just four companies led the meatpacking industry until 1891 and only five companies controlled almost all refrigerated beef production until the Packer and Stockyards Act of 1921. However, market concentration among the four largest firms would go on to climb from 25% in 1977 to over 80% in the 1990s. This jump could partially be a result of the new approach to antitrust laws the Supreme Court took in 1979: consolidation and mergers were seen not as a threat to the competitiveness of a given market, but as a way to reduce costs for consumers. As evidenced by rising beef prices in grocery stores, this is a faulty philosophy. 

Similarly, antitrust actions taken against monopolistic oil companies successfully reduce concentrated market power, but this doesn’t last forever. Standard Oil controlled a whopping 91% of oil production in the US in 1904 until it was broken up by the Sherman Antitrust Act. Since then, the concentrated market share declined (it was 27% in 1993) and crept up again to 48% in 2003 as more mergers developed. 

Despite governmental antitrust action in the past, both industries maintain some form of monopolistic structure, and the meat industry maintains a hefty lead. This class action lawsuit against the Big Four is a step in the right direction, though it does not offer remedy to change how they have built and sustained their power. 

No More Rose-Colored Glasses: What Do Today’s Farms Really Look Like, and Where Do Monopolies Fit into Them?

The romanticised image of the modest red barn is a far cry from the realities of farming in the 21st century: 99% of farmed animals in the US live on factory farms. Industrial farms are continuing to acquire smaller farms, which were the fastest declining type of farm from 2017 to 2022. 

Loading image...But beef isn’t the only industry squeezing farmers’ margins. The fertilizer and seed industry are also operating in monopolistic fashions: Within the fertilizer industry in 2025, just seven companies had 70% of the market share of the fertilizer US farmers rely on. In 2024, another seven companies had an average of 80 percent of the market share of cotton, soybean, and corn seed.

This high concentration of market power has likely contributed to the fact that seed prices increased by 18% and fertilizer prices have increased by 37% from 2020 to 2025. To make matters worse for farmers, fertilizer prices are extremely volatile and with the amount of planning farmers must do in advance, they have a difficult time buying the necessary amount of fertilizer they need. From the seed to the fertilizer needed to grow the seed into crops -  as well as the cattle that feed on those crops - farmers are cornered by the monopolistic set up within US industrial animal agriculture. 

This dilemma is reflected in their increasing debt to asset ratios. Farmers struggle to repay the large loans, and this is only expected to worsen - climate change induces volatile cycles of drought and heat that make it difficult to grow crops or raise consistent numbers of cattle. 

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The Truth Is, Factory Farms Are Financially Fragile Investments

Banks that invest in factory farming are propping up the industries that are squeezing farmers out of their profits while pushing up consumer prices. Trust busting provided temporary relief in the past but - similar to the fossil fuel industry - the market concentration continues to rebound. 

The negative reputation of factory farming will intensify and banks who refuse to divest are at risk of facing stranded assets as a result. For example, some coal plants are anticipated to shut down pre-maturely in the face of alternative forms of energy and banks who refuse to divest as the world shifts to different fuels will watch this asset turn into a liability. Even “moderate changes” in diets away from meat in the UK for example, is predicted to put €61 billion to €255 billion at risk. 

The millions of dollars Tyson and Cargill are paying consumers because of their lawsuit is a small sum compared to the losses financial institutes who invest in these companies could suffer in the future. 

Show Financial Institutions that Concentrated Power Is Unacceptable

After you investigate your eligibility for a share of the settlement, you can investigate your bank to help make systemic change against factory farming. Find out if your bank is investing in industrial animal agriculture and send them a message to push them away from factory farming. If you’re in the UK, you can also use our step-by-step guide on how to switch your bank to a more ethical one.

Follow Bank for Nature on Instagram, LinkedIn and Substack to help us drive this critical change and stay up to date on news at the cross-section of nature, finance and factory farming.

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