Challenging corporate concentration in poultry systems – linking global to local level

The challenge

Industrial poultry systems can boost farmers' profits, improve livelihoods, and make affordable protein more accessible, especially in the Global South. However, industrial poultry systems are highly corporatised, integrated and consolidated, with only two firms producing global breeding stock for chicken meat. Corporate concentration can create anti-competitive behaviour, skew market power in ways that exclude smallholder producers, undermine environmental standards, negatively affect animal welfare, and reduce the genetic diversity of local chicken breeds.  The project will investigate how corporate concentration in poultry production systems contributes to pandemic risks and livelihood vulnerabilities.

What we’re doing

This research will use an interdisciplinary approach grounded in political economy and structural One Health to examine how corporate concentration affects the poultry industry and the ongoing involvement of smallholder farmers in commercial value chains across India, South Africa, and Uganda. We will collect primary mixed-methods data in these regions to understand how corporate concentration affects smallholders and to evaluate the sustainability of their participation over time. 

How it helps

The evidence and lessons from this research will support the development of a novel framework to help academics understand the impact of global corporate concentration in poultry breeding on livelihoods and, more broadly, on the environment. The methodological toolkit used could be useful for researchers and practitioners in capturing market and competition dynamics and local farmer-level impacts in other similar contexts. Further, the workshops will assist competition market authorities in the regulation and governance of the poultry industry and raise awareness among farmer organisations

Header image credit: Artem Beliaikin via Unsplash.

• Goga, S., & Roberts, S. (2026). Concentration and competition from global to local: The Southern African poultry industry. Competition & Change, 30(2), 510–529.
• Tak M, Karamchedu A, Syndicus I (2022) Identifying economic and financial drivers of industrial livestock production – the case of the global chicken industry. Guidance Memo Prepared for Tiny Beam Fund.