This paper draws upon the events surrounding two small United States Department of Agriculture-funded projects in order to explore some preliminary ideas about the influence of corporations in US policy-making through federal advisory committees created by the 1972 Federal Advisory Committee...

Since the turn of the lastcentury, Michigan farmers, elevators, and stategovernment have used production and processstandards to shape the dry bean industry totheir interests and set a worldwide standardfor quality dry beans. Over the last 20 years,however, multinational agro/food firms...