Top Antitrust Cop
Plans Midwest Trip

WASHINGTON —(AP)— The Justice Department's chief enforcer of antitrust laws has agreed to go to the upper Midwest to hear concerns about consolidation in agribusiness.

No date or location has been set for the visit by Joel Klein. His office is currently reviewing plans by Cargill Inc. of Minneapolis, the nation's No. 1 grain company, to buy the worldwide operations of second-ranked Continental Grain Co.

Democratic senators from Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota and South Dakota have been pressing Klein and Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman to meet with producers and other people concerned about recent mergers.

``As we continue to fashion responses to the current farm crisis, we need to take a serious look at how producers and communities are hurt when too much economic power is being held in the hands of too few people, giving our producers fewer and fewer market options,'' said Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D.