It's a reference to the situation shown in the diagrams Sophie scanned. The width of the figures at any point shows the number of... decision-making entities at any point of the food production/distribution system, while the top-to-bottom axis shows the flow of food through the system. So in the left-hand figure (western Europe, more-or-less), there are 3 million farmers and 160 million consumers, but there's a point just after the food manufacturing and just before the supermarkets, where 110 people are making the decisions about what food is going to be available in the supermarkets.
Patel points out that those 110 people have a stunning amount of power on the market -- they determine what the farmers can find markets for and what prices they get, and what's available for consumers to buy and again at what prices -- and they don't work for the benefit of either the consumers or the farmers, but for the big food conglomerates. And, Patel continues, everyone who isn't a big food conglomerate is suffering accordingly.
Patel doesn't give detailed plans for how to "snap the bottleneck"; he more points our attention at it as being an action that would give a lot of benefit, if we could figure out how to do it. Patel does give hints, though -- collective action is a big, recurring theme in the book.
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It's a reference to the situation shown in the diagrams Sophie scanned. The width of the figures at any point shows the number of... decision-making entities at any point of the food production/distribution system, while the top-to-bottom axis shows the flow of food through the system. So in the left-hand figure (western Europe, more-or-less), there are 3 million farmers and 160 million consumers, but there's a point just after the food manufacturing and just before the supermarkets, where 110 people are making the decisions about what food is going to be available in the supermarkets.
Patel points out that those 110 people have a stunning amount of power on the market -- they determine what the farmers can find markets for and what prices they get, and what's available for consumers to buy and again at what prices -- and they don't work for the benefit of either the consumers or the farmers, but for the big food conglomerates. And, Patel continues, everyone who isn't a big food conglomerate is suffering accordingly.
Patel doesn't give detailed plans for how to "snap the bottleneck"; he more points our attention at it as being an action that would give a lot of benefit, if we could figure out how to do it. Patel does give hints, though -- collective action is a big, recurring theme in the book.