“Frerick’s prose throughout is both direct and masterfully controlled, with every point supported by extensive references and notes. This is no alarmist screed but rather a careful, systematic, and utterly damning demolition job—an exquisitely informed exposé… A genuinely revelatory look at mass food production in the United States” — Kirkus Reviews, starred
“In this eye-opening debut study, Frerick, an agricultural policy fellow at Yale University, reveals the ill-gained stranglehold that a handful of companies have on America’s food economy…It’s a disquieting critique of private monopolization of public necessities.” — Publishers Weekly, starred
2025 Nautilus Book Awards Silver Winner
Kirkus Reviews “Best Books of 2024”
Food & Water Watch’s “Book of the Year”
American Library Association “Outstanding Academic Titles 2024”
Electric Literature “Best Books of Spring 2024”
Barons is the story of seven titans of the food industry, their rise to power, and the consequences for workers, eaters, and democracy itself. Readers will meet a secretive German family that took over the global coffee industry in less than a decade, relying on wealth traced back to the Nazis to gobble up countless independent roasters. They will visit the Disneyland of agriculture, where school children ride trams through mechanized warehouses filled with tens of thousands of cows that never see the light of day. And they will learn that in the food business, crime really does pay—especially when you can bribe and then double-cross the president of Brazil. Barons paints a stark portrait of corporate consolidation, but it also shows that a fair, healthy, and prosperous food industry is possible—if we take back power from the barons who have robbed us of it.
From the Publisher
A selection from chapters of Austin Frerick’s Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America’s Food Industry
From Chapter 1: The Hog Barons
“The state’s hog industry, led by the Hansens, has cultivated close relationships with state politicians on both sides of the aisle to roll back regulations. Even as California has passed animal welfare laws and North Carolina has tightened its permitting program for confinement operations, the hog industry in Iowa goes almost unchecked. Today, Iowa raises about one-third of the nation’s hogs, about as many as the second-,third-, and fourth-ranking states combined.
…
Meanwhile, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources rubber-stamps permits for medium and large animal warehouses and levies only paltry fines for manure spills. The department’s leadership is appointed by the state’s governor. A recent state audit report determined that the Iowa DNR was ‘mismanaging a multimillion-dollar fund set up to help oversee Iowa livestock farms and their manure,’ but nothing has come of it.”
From Chapter 3: The Coffee Barons
“The Reimann family—more than any other baron portrayed in this book—is good at keeping secrets. The family has studiously avoided the sort of media coverage and public appearances that have proved irresistible to the other barons. In fact, rumor has it that when family members turn eighteen, they sign a pledge not to show their face in public, which is why no photos accompany their names in the annual Forbes list of the world’s wealthiest people. As the Economist put it, the Reimanns are ‘faceless,’ letting the wild success of their coffee empire speak for itself.
Yet just a few decades ago, this guarded German family likely could not have assembled its empire. Its acquisition spree was made possible by seismic shifts in the law, with profound consequences for JAB’s competitors and customers and even those who never drink a sip of coffee.”
From Chapter 4: The Dairy Barons
“Sue McCloskey’s cows never get a chance to roam on pasture. But, as she told Food & Wine magazine in 2018, she strives to keep the girls happy. Sue’s husband, Mike McCloskey, is chairman of a dairy production facility and tourist attraction called Fair Oaks Farms, which has been referred to by some media outlets as the ‘Disneyland of agricultural tourism.’ At the facility’s vast complex of Amazon-like warehouses, the ‘happy girls’ pump out more than four million school milk cartons’ worth of milk per day, making Fair Oaks one of the largest dairy producers in America.
But it is far from exceptional. For decades, huge operations like Fair Oaks have been replacing family dairy farms across America. … Today, more than half of America’s milk is produced on less than 3 percent of its farms. And those megafarms are like Fair Oaks: factories that are larger than any operations in agricultural history.”
From Chapter 6: The Slaughter Barons
“The Batista brothers control the largest slaughtering empire the world has ever seen. According to their own website, Joesley and Wesley are the largest global butchers of beef and chicken and are number two in pork. In addition to their meat monopolies, JBS is the world’s largest leather processor.
Bloomberg News estimates the Batistas’ personal fortune at $5.8 billion. They produce almost enough protein daily to give a four-ounce portion to every citizen of Australia, Canada, Poland, Spain, and Italy combined. To keep all these kill lines running, the brothers employ a quarter million people globally.
…
The Batistas first entered the American market in 2007 with their purchase of the historic Swift & Company. JBS’s purchase of Swift made it the third-largest seller of beef and pork in the United States overnight.”
Praise for Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America’s Food Industry by Austin Frerick
ASIN : B0CWKK4Q9K
Publisher : Island Press
Accessibility : Learn more
Publication date : March 26, 2024
Language : English
File size : 2.5 MB
Screen Reader : Supported
Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
X-Ray : Enabled
Word Wise : Enabled
Print length : 274 pages
ISBN-13 : 978-1642832709
Page Flip : Enabled
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