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Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America's Food Industry By Austin Frerick

PUBLISHER: Island Press

SEVERAL REVIEWS

REVIEWS

“[Frerick] dissects not only the food barons’ business practices, but also the disastrous impacts of these practices… The author, who frequently sounds as though he is fighting to control his personal rage at the people he’s writing about, backs up his statements with facts and figures. This is an angry and accusatory book, but also a fair and well-documented one.”
~ Booklist

“Time will tell whether Austin Frerick’s Barons joins that elite list [of classic books on the food system]. It certainly could given how well he’s structured the story, how seamlessly he grapples with complex policy, and how effortlessly he guides readers through the consequences to so much of American real estate, so many communities, and so many people.”
~ Mode Shift

"Barons is an explosive and absolutely riveting tour through a hidden world of big-money powerhouses that control our food system. Frerick is a fantastic storyteller, with the rare combination of on-the-ground empathy for rural communities and sparklingly brilliant analysis. This book is essential to understand our new food system, and the dangers it poses to everyone who eats."
~ Christopher Leonard, author of 'The Meat Racket' and 'Kochland'

"Austin is one of the most important and exciting voices in the next generation, and he lays out a road map to bring about a delicious revolution that addresses climate, health, and taste."
~ Alice Waters, founder and owner of Chez Panisse

"Frerick traces the items in our grocery carts to uncover a radical consolidation of economic power that has put our communities and democracy in jeopardy. Most importantly, he shows how none of this is inevitable, but rather the outcome of decisions that are in our power to change."
~ Stacy Mitchell, Co-Executive Director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and author of 'Big-Box Swindle'

"Austin Frerick shows just how much consolidation has devastated family farmers. But what makes Barons so good is how clearly he explains how those changes were caused by policies that benefit Wall Street and corporate America at the expense of everyone else."
~ Rob Larew, President of the National Farmers Union

From TheNewLede.org New book details rise of "dystopian agricultural horror show":

Few books about America’s industrial agriculture system and food industry uncover the billionaires behind its biggest corporations. But a new book by Austin Frerick, a former tax economist at the US Treasury Department and current Fellow at Yale University’s Thurman Arnold Project, reveals the
amassed fortunes of Big Ag’s most powerful families. Barons: Money, Power, and Corruption of America’s Food Industry exposes these ill-gotten gains and a cadre of complicit government players who made it all possible.

With the recent release of the USDA’s dismal report Census of Agriculture (February 13, 2024), Frerick’s book is well-timed. The Ag Census disclosed that 141,733 farms shuttered between 2017 and 2022. Barons reveals that these losses happened at the same time that big food producers and merchants garnered both stunning profits and government handouts.

Frerick is an expert in agriculture policy with an antitrust law focus. He served as a co-chair for the Biden campaign’s Agriculture and Antitrust Policy Committee. In Barons, Frerick steers his experience and scholarship into a pointed denunciation of Big Ag’s unbridled and monopolistic wealth. It’s an overduecensure. In fact, many times during the book, I was surprised by a recurring sense of personal validation.

Being from rural Iowa and witnessing the 1980’s Farm Crisis take hold of my family and neighbors, Barons made me feel like somebody was standing up for the farm community of my youth. It’s a painful loss knowing that today’s industrial food system rises from the ashes of America’s family farms. And it is no accident.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Austin Frerick is an expert on agricultural and antitrust policy. He worked at the Open Markets Institute, the U.S. Department of Treasury, and the Congressional Research Service before becoming a Fellow at Yale University. He is a 7th generation Iowan and 1st generation college graduate, with degrees from Grinnell College and the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

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