Growing up in Iowa, author Austin Frerick and his family often drove Highway 151 to vacation in Wisconsin Dells. “You’d see animals, beautiful rolling hills,” he recalled. But now, that drive has transformed. Today, he doesn’t see animals in pastures — he smells them, as thousands upon thousands are packed and hidden away in factory farms. 

“What used to be a two-lane road is now a four-lane road, and there’s no reason why it should be four lanes. But then you realize it’s built for commodities, not the people,” Austin said. And all the beautiful towns that once lined 151? “Decaying,” he said.

In Iowa and across the country, big agribusiness corporations have hollowed out rural communities. At the same time, they’ve made food more expensive and less safe.

In his new book Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America’s Food Industry, Austin explains how a handful of tycoons wreaked havoc on our food and our democracy for profit. 

“Never forget,” he said, “The land’s producing the most it’s ever produced, and none of that wealth is staying there.” Rather than benefiting agricultural communities, Big Ag is hoovering up every last drop of profit possible.

These are dynamics we know well at Food & Water Watch. Over the years, we’ve fought the corporate power that is making our food more expensive and less safe. Their practices hurt farmers, families, the environment, and rural economies.

And this year, Executive Director Wenonah Hauter selected Barons as her book of the year. In January, she sat down with Austin to discuss what he learned writing the book and how we can change things.

Cargill’s Corporate Capture of Our Food Policy

One of Austin’s barons is the ag behemoth Cargill. In just a few decades, the company went from a single family-run grain elevator in Iowa to a multinational corporation that moves a quarter to a third of all grains on the planet, he told us. It’s also a processing and transport company, involved in everything from the salt spread on roads to the turkey on your table.

How did it grow to such heights? By exploiting government policy, including the Farm Bill, the U.S.’s biggest package of agricultural funding and policy. 

Lawmakers designed the first Farm Bill to reach a “Goldilocks” level of food production. It reached for the sweet spot between producing too much (flooding the market, which plummets prices and farmer income) and producing too little (leading to higher prices for families and scarcity). The result was a combination of subsidies and conservation, which took some of the land out of production.

The Cargills benefited from these policies, yet wanted to shut them down. They wanted to move and process as much grain as possible. And they had built up the money and power to sway the country’s food policy.

“Now the Farm Bill is designed to overproduce grains at the expense of everything else,” Austin said. “So if you grow corn you’ll get a ton of subsidies. But if you grow carrots, you get nothing.”

“The Farm Bill is not even for farmers anymore,” he added. “It’s for Pepsi” — corporations that profit from using artificially cheap grains and sweeteners, like corn syrup, in their products.

The Power of Information and Working Together Toward a Better Food System

Cargill was embedded in the fabric of Austin’s childhood in Iowa. “They had a Cargill plant next to my church, next to the hospital I was born at,” he said. And yet, the full extent of Cargill’s business was a mystery to him. This is by design: “They don’t want you to understand. People profit off complexity.”

But with books like Barons and organizations like Food & Water Watch, we can fight them. As Austin said, Food & Water Watch was built for moments like this. “As we see regulatory capture run amok in this country, if it wasn’t for this organization putting this information out there, we wouldn’t know.”

Having this information is the start of holding our officials accountable and bringing real change. Even when our leaders seem bought-and-paid-for, Austin pointed out that we can collaborate with local journalists to pressure and shame officials into action. 

As for things we can do right now, he offered this suggestion: “Focus on local procurement.” We can help make connections between farms and local buyers like culinary schools, restaurants, and public schools.

This helps generate consistent income for farmers and keeps money in the community, instead of sending profits outside of the state to big corporations. As Austin put it, “As we phase out this old system, we’ve got to help build up the new one.”

Watch the Full Conversation with Austin Frerick

Click below to watch the full conversations between Austin and Wenonah. You’ll learn more about:

• Other barons like Walmart, dairy giant Fair Oaks Farms, and meat giant JBS,
• How America’s antitrust laws gave way to pro-corporate deregulation,
• How corporations have captured our regulatory system,
• Advice on how to respond to and organize under the current Trump administration, and
• Two things we can do in our communities right now to help farmers and transform our food system.

Resources Shared at the Event

• Learn more about Barons and buy it directly from the publisher. 
• As Austin said, food policy changes quickly. The best way to stay up to date is by signing up for our e-mail list! Click here to subscribe.
• Join our fight for a sustainable food system and volunteer with the Food Action Team.
• Your generosity helps us fight corporate control of our food, water, and environment. Donate to Food & Water Watch! 
• Barons opens with Julie Duhn, an Iowa activist fighting factory farms. Read more of her story and the harms of hog factory farming in our article “Factory Farm Pollution Harms Family Farms and Frontline Communities.”
• One key way Austin suggested combating the corrupt food system is by using our power with the media: “If you see something, say something. Let journalists know; journalists are your best friends.” Check out our Livable Future LIVE dedicated to food, water, and climate in the media to learn ways you can influence the narrative.
• Learn more about the top three policy changes we’re pushing to fight factory farms.
• Check out books Austin recommended during the talk: Hell’s CartelI: IG Farben and the Making of Hitler’s War Machine by Diarmuid Jeffreys, Foodopoly: The Battle Over the Future of Food and Farming in America by Wenonah Hauter; Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser; Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do by Studs Terkel; and Ten Restaurants That Changed America by Paul Freedman.