Post caption
Control the food, control the people.
The USDA just signed a $300M deal with Palantir to centralize all farmer data.
That brings Palantir’s Government contracts to over $6Bn.
The company was named after the all-seeing “palantíri” stones in The Lord of the Rings by Palantir’s founder Peter Thiel as a deliberate reference to the ability to “gaze across vast distances to track friends and foes.”
The new system they are implementing is called “One Farmer, One File,” and it will combine USDA records into one digital profile for each farmer.
It arrives one day after a watchdog sued five agencies over Palantir surveillance systems.
Food system consolidation has historically operated through the physical: four firms controlling 85% of beef packing, just a few controlling 60% of seeds, a highly consolidated grocery market, etc..
But now this means unprecedented informational consolidation: farm payments, acreage reporting, program access, and support all run through one private platform.
Palantir’s use case is very specific: turning fragmented data into actionable surveillance.
They now effectively monopolize the data for the entire food system meaning everything from policy, subsidy, and compliance will flow through their data.
This is why local, decentralized food systems are so important.
When we buy from centralized supplies, we lose choice.
And while we can’t control Governmental policy like this - we can support our local farmers and help fight for a more sovereign food system.
Transcript
If you control the food, you control the people. The USDA and Palantir just signed a $300,000,000 deal to centralize all farmer data, bringing Palantir's government contracts to over $6,000,000,000. The company was named after the all seeing Palantir Stones from the Lord of the Rings by Palantir's founder, Peter Tier, as a deliberate reference to the ability to gaze across vast distances to track friends and foes, which is important context considering the new system they are implementing with the USDA is called One Farmer, One File, combining records into one digital profile for each farmer. And it arrives just one day after a watchdog group sued five different agencies over similar Palantir surveillance system. This is all extremely important considering the food system consolidation is obvious at this point on a physical level. We know just a few firms are controlling beef, seeds, grocery market, but this is an unprecedented form of consolidation for the food system. It is entirely farm payments, acreage reporting, program access, and support all run through one private platform. Palantir's use case here is very specific, turning fragmented data into actionable surveillance. And so many feel they are now effectively monopolizing the data for the entire food system, meaning everything from policy, subsidy, and compliance will flow through their data. This is why local decentralized food systems are so important because when we buy from centralized supplies, we lose choice. And while we can't control government policy, we can support our small local farmers. You can use the localized farmers market app to find them.
