If I’m not playing around with spreadsheets or out in the barn, there’s a solid chance I have a book in my hands. I read a lot, usually 1 to 5 novels per week. Among these books are non-fiction agricultural books. I recently asked if readers wanted me to review some of these books and the response was a solid yes.
Books on agriculture and food systems can be a challenge. There’s often a bias against conventional agriculture within them as well as an over-romantized component of family farms. I do believe it’s important to read them as they can influence consumers and policymakers outside of agriculture. The monopolies in agriculture and the damage consolidation has done is to me one of the most pressing matters.
I’ve picked two books for this article, Barons by Austin Frerick and Foodopoly by Wenonah Hauter. I will not be sharing links to buy these, they are available from most major book retailers but you should consider asking your local independent bookseller to order them for you.
Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America's Food Industry
Published March 26, 2024, I actually pre-ordered this book. I’ve read several articles by Austin Frerick through social media and I was intrigued. His writing style is investigative journalism which makes this book an enjoyable easy read. It’s a story told by a great storyteller. Fair warning, if you dislike hearing barns being called warehouses and don’t want to know about the environmental impacts of manure in Iowa, you are going to miss out on a great book. From the publisher:
Barons is the story of seven corporate titans, their rise to power, and the consequences for everyone else. Take Mike McCloskey, Chairman of Fair Oaks Farms. In a few short decades, he went from managing a modest dairy herd to running 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. What was the key to his success? Hard work and exceptional business savvy? Maybe. But more than anything else, Mike benefitted from deregulation of the American food industry, a phenomenon that has consolidated wealth in the hands of select tycoons, and along the way, hollowed out the nation’s rural towns and local businesses.
Along with Mike McCloskey, 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 discover how a small grain business transformed itself into an empire bigger than Koch Industries, with ample help from taxpayer dollars. 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.
These, and the other stories in this book, are simply examples of the monopolies and ubiquitous corruption that today define American food. The tycoons profiled in these pages are hardly unique: many other companies have manipulated our lax laws and failed policies for their own benefit, to the detriment of our neighborhoods, livelihoods, and our democracy itself. Barons paints a stark portrait of the consequences of corporate consolidation, but it also shows we can choose a different path. A fair, healthy, and prosperous food industry is possible—if we take back power from the barons who have robbed us of it.
Frerick calls the current times the second Gilded Age, an unsettling but apt comparison. He covered both the rise of various powerful entities in American (and global) agriculture as well as the policy changes that allowed them to grow. He highlights just how recent some of the consolidation has been and how little was done to stop it. For me, a big takeaway is that almost all of this consolidation has happened in my lifetime.
I read Barons in a matter of a couple of hours. It’s fast-paced, to the point and overall enjoyable. My biggest complaint about this book is that the author constantly makes comparisons with one statistic to a series of others without providing an actual number. I’m not American, I have no idea how much tax revenue a state makes, I’d rather just have had the number for Cargill’s revenue. Everything is referenced though, there are 58 pages of notes and sources in the back of the book. I checked out a few of them and they lead to legitimate sources, not heresy or anecdotes.
Foodopoly: The Battle Over the Future of Food and Farming in America
Wenonah Hauter’s book was published on December 11, 2012, twelve years before Barons. I can’t remember how or when I got this book, I know it’s signed on the inside and I have had it for years. This book is incredibly detailed with a ton of facts and figures. It’s a much more challenging read than Barons but covers details that were glossed over. From Goodreads:
Wenonah Hauter owns an organic family farm that provides healthy vegetables to hundreds of families as part of the growing nationwide Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) movement. Yet, as one of the nation's leading healthy–food advocates, Hauter believes that the local food movement is not enough to solve America's food crisis and the public health debacle it has created. In Foodopoly, she takes aim at the real culprit: the control of food production by a handful of large corporations—backed by political clout—that prevents farmers from raising healthy crops and limits the choices that people can make in the grocery store.
Blending history, reporting, and a deep understanding of American faming and food production, Foodopoly is the shocking and revealing account of the business behind the meat, vegetables, grains, and milk that most Americans eat every day, including some of our favorite and most respected organic and health–conscious brands. Hauter also pulls the curtain back from the little–understood but vital realm of agricultural policy, showing how it has been hijacked by lobbyists, driving out independent farmers and food processors in favor of the likes of Cargill, Tyson, Kraft, and ConAgra. Foodopoly demonstrates how the impacts ripple far and wide, from economic stagnation in rural communities at home to famines overseas. In the end, Hauter argues that solving this crisis will require a complete structural shift—a change that is about politics, not just personal choice.
Written with deep insight from one of America's most respected food activists, Foodopoly is today's essential guide for anyone who wants to reform our food system, from seed to table.
This book has diagrams and details that make it a much longer read. Flipping back through it while writing this, I’m sad to say that even though Foodopoly came out 12 years ago, nothing has changed in agriculture. If anything, it’s worse. At least one of the companies profiled in the book has been bought up by another with government approval. This book is a worthwhile read overall, it will make you think about what’s really at stake in agriculture.
Brought to you by toothless Antitrust Laws
In the end, both books highlight how badly written antitrust laws and competition laws have led American agriculture to a place that’s bad for farmers and consumers. I know they focus entirely on USA data and issues, however, we have the same problem in Canada. The Canadian economy is dominated by monopolies and oligopolies. It extends far beyond just the food system, cellphones being a prime example.
Farmers have limited choices to market their production and consumers have limited choices for purchasing. The corporations in the middle are laughing all the way to the bank. The lack of competition in groceries in Canada is causing huge issues. We have legal precedents and historical examples to fight this. Instead, companies have made fines regarding price-fixing just a cost of doing business.
I’d encourage you to read both books but if you only have time for one, start with Barons. It’s important to me that you finish the book, the conclusion is excellent and hopeful. If you prefer audiobooks, Frerick has shared that an audiobook version will be out by summer.
If you want more book recommendations and reviews, please leave me a comment. I have a ton of books on a range of subjects. I’m always happy to chat books and would love to hear your recommendations as well!