Agricultural colleges in the top five beef-producing states have become quasi-arms of the cattle industry, selling science to corporate bidders who set the research agenda with their dollars.This dramatic shift is the “ultimate irony,” said David Domina, an Omaha, Neb., attorney who won a $1.28 billion antitrust verdict against Tyson Foods Inc. and has studied the industry for years. “The research institutions are controlled by the nemesis of family farmers,” Domina said. “The nemesis of the family farm is the big business that is unwilling to tolerate what it perceives as the inefficiency of individual small operators.”
