Introduction

The recent opening of the European Common Market adds further power to giant industries.
Concentration on the retail sector has destroyed in Germany 60 000 full-time jobs.
Mergers and acquisitions are the prime culprit. When a smaller company is taken over, a number of duplicated functions are amalgamated growing to low-overhead companies with smaller workforces[115].
The retail sector is also getting global. Carrefour, a retail group with head in France reports the opening of 10 new business fields in Brazil, China, the Czech Republic, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Spain and Taiwan. The total number of stores of Carrefour come up to 345 in 20 different countries[114].
The concentration of the market still goes on and increases new speed with the European activity of the US giant Wal-Mart [131] buying at the end of 1998 the Interspar-SB warehouses.
Wal-Mart is interested to buy the Carrefour group.
Wal-Mart has already reached a turnover in 1997 of 200 billion Mark.It has a gigantesque data-processing system which is only surpassed by the system of US Ministry of Defense in the Pentagon.(Read all about Hyperlinked Management searching in INDEX to see the development of data-processing in food management for the coming years.)
Wal-Mart controls according Jürgen Maximow the behavior of its clients utilizing data from the buying checks client charts and interviews of its employees.
In this way Wal-Marts gets a picture of the behavior of the client, the speed of turnover of the ware and regional different reactions of the market.
Wal-Mart has an enormous knowledge concerning its customers.
J"urgen Maximow says that the actual business is not middle classes friendly. in the Year 2005 less than ten retailing groups will be left over.

Retailer	Home based	Total	Branch
		turnover
		US$bn
Wal-Mart	USA	156	Canadien, Mexico, Brazil,
			Argentina, China, South corea
			and Germany
Metro	Germany,Zwitzerland	46	West and East Europe, China,
The Kroger Co	USA	45
Carrefour	France	40
Alberton' s	USA
Edeka	Germany	37
Rewe	Germany	36	Austria, Cherchenien, Slowakia,
			Poland, Hungary, Italy,
			and France
Royal Aholda	Netherlands	35
Intermarché	France	34
Tesco	GB	32

The French group Intermarché has the majority of Spar enterprises.
The head of the board of directors of the Daimler-Chrysler automobile group, Jürgen Schrempp expects a wide dissolution of nations as a result of growing international fusion of enterprises.
To the magazine "Forbes" Schrempp stated: "We are going to come to a transatlantic union and then we should get ahead and finally build a world union without borders between countries [110].
In 1971 Gudrun Tempel wrote the world being a small village, his head having more power than a president or a minister of finance [111].
Unfortunately the great global companies do not bring wealth or better life to the country where they operate.
Oranges are being marketed in Brazil mainly by four companies: The Brazilian Cutrale and Citrosuco,the French Coimbra and the US American Cargill producing 40% of world orange juice.Price of fruits and pay for workers are kept at extreme low levels without benefits to the workers of this giant industry. Globalization does not bring a better live to the world. It destroys the basis of social organization[113].
As former Foreign Minister of Germany, Hans-Dieter Genscher[127] considers 1989, the year of the opening of the Wall of Berlin as a beam of the industrial as well as social globalization.According to his words it is now time to get together and fight the common threats of globalization which are:
Mass poverty
Ignorance
and no chance of education
The natural life basis are menaced as well as a spread of mass destruction weapons and the carrying system for their transport is taking place.
At the end of the cold war when the scare which was paralyzing humanity had been lifted, better transport and information flow was able to drive on development of technology and business.
According to Genscher globalization has to be carried by the spirit of tolerance to avoid collision of cultures. Intolerance is often the product of ignorance. It is therefore important to furnish informations about other cultures in our schools.
As the availability of food resources depend on the political leadership of the countries where basic foods grow the political configuration of the world in the 21.century is for food trade and industry of crucial importance. Genscher says:
"Russia will remain a part of the power of the world.
China and India will play growing roles.
Japan will remain strong.
Brasil, despite its economical troubles will gain weight.
To these nations there will come regional unions like MERCOSUR in Latin America, the Gulf Cooperation Council ASEAN in Southeast Asia and the European Union in Europe.The European Union is already of equal rank to USA.
A peaceful system of the world will in future only be possible on basis of the declarations of human rights of UN and the spirit of tolerance.
The vitality of US democracy shown throughout history is on this matter a good omen for the future."
Globalization and the concentration on the power of worldwide companies are building great factories and enormous agricultural fields of monocultures. In these factories and on these fields there are small groups of workers which producing for the whole world. Small industries all over the word disappear because they cannot survive in the struggle against the almighty presence of these giants. Those who are jobless are put aside of society. They have no future. As the number of unemployed rises the power of reaction against globalization grows. The only way to save our planet and our society is to get back to economic and ecological isolated systems. The regions must produce for themselves and avoid to be fed by imported wares. In this way there are no dumping prices destroying the local markets. This social revolution can take place like the fall of the Berlin Wall 1989 as a great part of the population of the DDR recognized the dawn of the communist system. The legion of the unemployed persons will recognize that Global business destroys our society and will make a ban of global products.

You cannot avoid globalization.
You cannot turn back time, but you can inform yourself through databases like OUR FOOD.
Free databases like OUR FOOD provide informations on how to avoid the menace of daily poisoning.
That is why databases on food are important. Be careful not to fall into sectarian thinking - allow always arguments of the other side.


OUR FOOD wishes you success on your researches.