Austin Frerick on the Robber Barons of Today’s Food Industries
Posted in Daily
In this week’s Down to Earth episode, hear from Austin Frerick, author of Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America’s Food Indsutry, about his experience seeing his home state of Iowa go from a world of farms to hollowed out rural communities due to monopolistic corporations and his solutions to these problems. New Down to Earth Episode! Austin Frerick on the Robber Barons of Today’s Food Industries Austin Frerick grew up in Iowa, which in his youth had a robust regional food system that offered abundant produce and meat from family farms. But because of one “baron”––that’s the name Frerick calls the men whose monopolistic corporations profoundly reshape markets and communities––rural areas were hollowed out, farmers were driven off their farms and into factories or other professions, and the quality of life had declined precipitously, from toxic pollution to low wages, to unhealthy food. Frerick’s wonderfully readable new book, Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America’s Food Industry, published by Island Press, uncovers the havoc wrought by these barons in the sectors of hogs, grain, coffee, dairy, berries, animal slaughter, and groceries–some of whom are well known, while others are purposefully secretive. Their power is vast, and they stand in the way of a truly competitive, farmer-centric regenerative food system. And yet Frerick offers solutions and hope, and ways that each of us can participate. Listen to Episode #162 |