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Belgian pork production has faced stagnating prices for decades. It remains unclear whether excessive market power from slaughterhouses or meat retailers has played a role in this trend. While market power studies can reveal some of the market dynamics in this setting, this type of research has not yet been applied to the Belgian pork market. The present paper investigates oligopolies and oligopsonies in the pork production sector. We build a new model that focuses on market power dynamics in the market for live pigs and distinguishes horizontal and vertical market power parameters, both for pig farmers and for slaughterhouses. The results follow from an empirical application using unique slaughterhouse data for 2001–2015. The results indicate that the farmers benefit from a significant power advantage in the live pig market, when very modest price demands are taken as a reference. The final market price of live pigs approaches the price requested by the farmers. On the other hand, the measured vertical market power also suggests that a pig farmer does not receive the (modest) full-wage-based salary. The market power of the slaughterhouses is also limited. Market power as a result of collusion—that is, horizontal market power—is present, but is not strong. However, there are significant differences between the slaughterhouses in terms of mark-up on the input prices. These differences reflect differences in company strategy, and this diversity further reduces the possibility to create sector-wide collusive behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the introduction of the sustainability challenge, scientists disagree over the interpretation of the term 'sustainability.' Weak and strong sustainability are the two main interpretations of sustainability, which are opposing each other. Some researchers stated that the interpretation of the term depends on the context; others disagree pointing out that it always implies the meaning of continuation. The term 'sustainability' can be used as attribute, which adds a certain characteristic to the noun. If something can be attributed as being sustainable, it can also be unsustainable. The sustainability challenge consists of shifting from the current unsustainable towards a sustainable system. This paper outlines that the weak sustainability term is illegitimate, as it leads to a contradiction with the acknowledged assumption that the current state is unsustainable. This contradiction is revealed through an analysis of the occurrence of decoupling in agriculture: Agricultural land use could be decoupled from agricultural production, but only with the trade-off of massive increases in fertilizer, pesticide, energy and water usage. This paper outlines an inherent inconsistency within the ongoing discussion about the interpretation of sustainability. Through identifying the invalidity of the weak sustainability interpretation the focus can be shifted form the discourse to the sustainability challenge itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article "Investigating market power in the Belgian pork production chain", written by Dries Maes, Mark Vancauteren and Steven Van Passel, was originally published electronically on the publisher's internet portal (currently SpringerLink) on 27 November 2019 without open access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]