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The Barons Who Rule What We Eat

News Feed
Friday, April 4, 2025

Growing up, Austin Frerick recalls the fields of Iowa as lush and full of farm animals. Now, when he visits his hometown of Cedar Rapids, he sees a more barren landscape. The shift, or as he describes it, “the collapse of Iowa,” inspired the seventh-generation Iowan to look into the wealth and power that’s shaped the state, and subsequently, the American agriculture and food systems. Frerick’s widely-praised book, Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America’s Food Industry, explores the titans who have amassed near monopolistic market domination of what we eat every day–and the systems that enabled them to amass power.  Chapter by chapter, Frerick profiles a family or company dominating the hog, grain, coffee, dairy, berry, slaughter, or grocery industries. Some are household names like Driscols and Walmart; others, like the Batista family who run the world’s largest butchering company, keep their names off their products. The profiles cover how each baron came to and maintained power, whether through government corruption, rapid acquisitions, or developing production models that dodged labor or environmental regulations.  The barons’ growth reveals how, in both visible and invisible ways, their products are intertwined in the larger food system. Ultimately, Frerick connects their actions—from building enormous hog confinements to skirting safety laws—to the various health and climate threats ailing communities across Iowa, America and the globe. Mother Jones recently caught up with Frerick to discuss the 2024 book and what it says against the backdrop of Trump’s plans, a growing MAHA movement, and skyrocketing food costs. Where did your interest in agriculture and food systems begin?  Cedar Rapids is a corn town, so much of your cereal, so much of your food, is manufactured there, and so it’s painted into the background. Also, part of my family is from up in the part of Iowa that used to be the prettiest; The Driftless region with rolling hills, dairy; and now there’s no animals on the land. You smell them, but you don’t see them. And you see the collapse of the family farm which has hollowed out these towns. There’s this imagery—people think of Iowa as like this Field of Dreams. But that’s not Iowa anymore. Field of Dreams Iowa died in my lifetime, and I think about that all the time. How did you first learn about the agriculture barons? I had an internship at a think tank, and they asked me to proofread school district data, and I sorted it by non-white, free and then reduced lunch rates; And I kept noticing the same seven small towns in Iowa. I was like, What’s going on here? Turns out they were all slaughterhouse towns. So I did my college thesis on this. I interviewed a principal where he told me about the additional support services that schools are required to bring because of the working poverty a lot of these students are growing up in. And in the next instant, he literally said, ‘The packers are great. They give me unlimited hot dogs for the back-to-school bash.’ And it was my advisor who said, ‘Do you not realize what’s going on there? That’s power. He can’t connect the fact that like all these issues are because of the slaughterhouse. These are modern day company towns.’ Your book centers on how these barons rose to become pillars of our global food system. How did they come to be?  This laissez faire era rewards a race to the bottom and the most ruthless players. Like most hog farmers, they weren’t willing in Iowa to shove their pigs into a metal shed where they don’t see a blade of grass. You reward the worst actors. And I think so much of the current American economy gets the worst people winning. “Iowa should be the Tuscany of North America. It has some of the world’s best soil yet it has an obesity crisis, a water crisis, and a cancer crisis.” Also, I think the food industry is the most concentrated space in America, but also the least appreciated. Look at Cargill (a multinational company that trades agriculture commodities and produces ultra-processed ingredients like corn syrup). It blows people’s minds when I tell them they’re the largest private company in America–they’re bigger than the Koch brothers. No one knows who they are, because they have a lot of middlemen who are not consumer facing. Even when they are consumer facing, a lot of times they own multiple brands, so you don’t even realize how consolidated that space is because you have this illusion of choice. How do the monopolies or oligopolies established affect the food we eat and what we pay?  We spend more money than the United Kingdom, Spain, Mexico, Canada, Greece, Japan, France, Germany, Sweden, Australia, Italy. So it’s like literally, we spend $1,000 more per person per year than some in the United Kingdom. So right now, the system is expensive, which, first of all, we shouldn’t be shocked about. That’s economics 101: concentrated markets gouge. It’s what they do. But second, something that I’ve come to appreciate is how much the system makes bad tasting food. We’re actually paying more for garbage.  And how do these barons impact the environment? Textbook monopoly is innovation: taste and price. But the environment, everything in the environment, there is a shifting of cost. They call it negative externalities in economics. You see it in Iowa. I view Iowa now as an extraction colony, like it’s really a 19th century coal mining town in terms of the power dynamics. The family hog farmer essentially died in my lifetime and this mass of industrial hogs took its place.  So Iowa has like 25 million hogs a year and they defecate three times more than us, so that’s manure of 75 million people. At the same time the regulatory structure has collapsed. And so Iowa is drowning in shit. The waterways were an open sewer, like 50 to 63 percent of the waterways in Iowa are too polluted for you to go in.  And then the last scary new thing we’re seeing is Iowa has the second-highest cancer rate in the country. And it’s clear it’s tied to the agricultural system in Iowa.  Iowa really is the canary in the coal mines of the American food system. Iowa should be the Tuscany of North America. It has some of the world’s best soil yet it has an obesity crisis, a water crisis, and a cancer crisis. In February, the Senate confirmed Brooke Rollins as Trump’s USDA secretary. What can we expect from her leadership, and how does that look in comparison to the legacy of Tom Vilsack, the former USDA secretary? More of the same. I really don’t see a policy difference between her and Vilsack. I would love to be proven wrong. To be fair, there hasn’t been a good secretary in my lifetime at USDA. But Vilsack failed to reign in the meat monopolies, these companies gouging everyone, gouging farmers, gouging at the store, employing children in slaughterhouses. He not only failed to do something, they actually got larger under the Biden administration.  In the most recent election, the rising cost of groceries was a major issue. Still, since Trump won we’ve seen him claim it will be hard to lower the price of groceries. What role do these barons have in the pricing of goods?  When you have so few players in the space, it’s so easy to act like a cartel and gouge. I think the best example, just the extent of the price gouging by the barons, is that McDonald’s is the largest buyer of beef in the world. Usually, you treat your largest customer the best: They say bark, you say woof. McDonald’s filed a lawsuit against the beef packers this fall for price fixing. So if you’re gouging your largest, best customer, that tells you everything.  I think that the really scary thing now is even Walmart’s getting hurt. Walmart’s like the king of kings, it’s the head honcho. People judge your grocery store based on the price and quality of the meat and dairy case. And Walmart’s response to being gouged by the barons is taking things into its own hands and making vertical plays into both beef and dairy by building its own beef plant in Wichita and then three dairy plants in America. I believe it wants insight into cost structure, so that way it knows when it negotiates with these barons it knows what it costs to produce a gallon of milk. I think the most powerful person in the American food system right now is a Walmart buyer.  Last congress extended the farm bill by one year as part of an effort to avert a government shutdown, so now it’ll likely be brought back up sometime this year. It’s become an industry defining bill. Can you share the gist of the farm bill and how it has shaped agriculture into a baron ruled system? Essentially, you have a quarter of it incentivizing people to over produce grains (through crop insurance systems), and then the other three fourths of it is a food assistance subsidy to the working poor of America. And I think the Farm Bill is collapsing in front of us right now because [Congress] can’t push it through. They’re trying to essentially pass a status quo Farm Bill, and they can’t even get it done. And I think partly it’s the MAHA influence, where younger men are obsessed with their bodies and so they’re repulsed by the Farm Bill. I mean, in fact, we get subsidies for Oreos, but not healthy food. And so you’re kind of seeing that break off into the MAHA. Senate Republicans want to pass it. House Republicans are much more like, let’s blow this thing up. And I think that’s what’s gonna be really curious to see.  It’s not like we’re eating more hogs. It’s more for export, and a lot of it’s to places like Mexico and China. Why are we destroying Iowa to feed China and Mexico?  I think the most likely outcome, actually, is they’re going to gut SNAP [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program], which is basically going to screw poor people or the working poor.  But again, one idea [Republicans] had, that I thought was a good idea, was they actually want to put SNAP under HHS, take it away from USDA. I think that’s a good idea. I don’t think they’ll actually do it. I assume everything they’re going to do is in the interest of the barons and the oligarchs.  Does change have to happen at state and local level first?  To me, that’s like the curse and blessing of the laboratories of democracy…You get things like unemployment insurance starting in Wisconsin and going national. Or, hopefully down the road, we see free school meals of Minnesota go national. But on the dark side, you see it play out too in the food system. In North Carolina, a state senator deregulated the hog industry that allowed this really exploitative industrial model to take hold and Iowa just copied it. One thing to keep in mind too about this hog production: It’s not like we’re eating more hogs. It’s more for export, and a lot of it’s to places like Mexico and China. Why are we destroying Iowa to feed China and Mexico?  I really do think there’s no party more tied into China than the Republican Party of Iowa. I mean, (former Iowa governor) Terry Branstad was Trump’s ambassador to China. The whole model of Iowa is overproduction and dumping these surpluses abroad. They can’t imagine a world of like, ‘Maybe we do less industrial pork, maybe we grow carrots, maybe we grow sheep?’ The really dark undercurrent is there’s all the xenophobic rhetoric, but [Iowa Republicans] are the most tied into that model. RFK Jr. and the MAHA movement seem keen to ban pesticides, seed oils, and ultraprocessed foods, many of which are central to some of the massive agriculture barons noted in your book, from Driscoll’s genetic work to Cargill’s high fructose corn syrup. How do you anticipate Big Ag industry leaders to respond to this?  Well, first of all, I think they have already started exerting some influence because no MAHA people got into USDA. So like, let’s just start there, they don’t have power. My takeaway from that whole thing is there really is a bipartisan chance to do something meaningful. Here you have a weird coalition of everyone just not seeing the system work. I mean, that is, you have the MAHA types latching onto it.  The barons tend to use the classic playbook. They drag things out. And so they’re going to try to delay the MAHA and hopefully the passion falls away.  Another policy change that agriculture may face is navigating the ongoing tariffs. Some Canadians are refusing to purchase produce made in the US. How does it impact these big Ag businesses? So much of the American Farm Bill now is designed to over produce a few things. So we essentially need to dump our surpluses abroad at the same time. These free trade agreements essentially allow the races to the bottom for produce production. Forty percent of your vegetables and 60 percent of fruit comes from outside the borders. Kind of like a T-shirt, when these supply chains move offshore, you see transparency collapse.  “This system is incredibly fragile, and it’s not sustainable.” But also keep in mind, farmers can’t compete on price, so they exit the market and then end up doing more corn and soy. These tariffs could break the current Farm Bill model in America, where we’re producing too many hogs for our consumption. We need to sell them to China. But also if a tariff war were to break out, what’s going to happen? What Trump did last time was essentially spend billions of dollars to do bailouts, to buy the surplus and take it off market. If anything, the tariffs are going to cost a lot of money.   What gives me hope is this system is incredibly fragile, and it’s not sustainable, and it’s going to break at some point. What we’re seeing with eggs is going to become normal, because you’re playing Russian roulette with disease in this industrial meat and dairy system. When you pack that many genetically similar animals into a metal shed, you’re going to get these massive disease outbreaks, and they will only continue to happen. So at some point you got to be like, is it worth it, or do we need a different production model? And these super concentrated systems are fragile. They’re going to keep breaking.  In the coffee baron chapter you note how in many cases researchers and economists earn a hefty income providing evidence that encourages monopolistic behavior. How does this impact everyday citizens? And what do you anticipate the future of this research industry?  I think the most corrupt academic discipline in America right now is agricultural economics. When you start talking to folks, you realize every commodity has go-to hack academics. I talk about a certain Ag economist at Iowa State, who is just the go-to academic for the hog baron. Even though, for example, we know that working at a slaughterhouse is one of the most dangerous jobs in America, and the hog baron wants to speed up the kill lines to make more money, magically, this Ag economist says this is good for Iowa farmers. He’s also in business with a hog baron. He is a corporate witness for them, and he usually doesn’t disclose it. So not only is it corrupting the literature, it’s corrupting the public discourse. And, to your average American, here’s a fancy sounding title from an academic from a university saying this is not a real issue. It’s helping to hide the crisis among the workers, the climate, and the food system.  In a time where agriculture is, as you note in your book, largely dominated by these oligopolies. Where is the most progress being made to disrupt these barons?  There’s two questions I always get asked when I do book events. One is, do you worry about your safety, and it’s always from a nice old lady. The second one is always, and this is usually from audience members at the more coastal events: Why are these people voting against their economic interest? And that question always bothered me because it was a Democrat [Vilsack] in Iowa that undermined the rebellion of people fighting with hog barons. I think there’s a degree of people, especially in these more rural communities, that just don’t trust anyone anymore. They want to blow up the whole system.  Here’s the thing: people for decades have been talking about monopolies, but no one’s done anything. We all agree that we’re being short changed by these barons. You have to articulate to folks what the system could be so that people feel like they can overcome that.  Start locally. The first anti-monopoly laws in the world started in Iowa, were written by Iowa farmers mad about being gouged by grain elevators. It rippled across the country and then the federal government essentially did a version of that bill. There’s a lot of people doing it right.  I really learned while writing this book that most people are trying to do the right thing. They’re just running uphill. And it’s just the greed of a few people holding us back. The system we have now is radical. So much of what we talked about is traditional. I just want animals on the land.  This interview has been edited and condensed.

Growing up, Austin Frerick recalls the fields of Iowa as lush and full of farm animals. Now, when he visits his hometown of Cedar Rapids, he sees a more barren landscape. The shift, or as he describes it, “the collapse of Iowa,” inspired the seventh-generation Iowan to look into the wealth and power that’s shaped […]

Growing up, Austin Frerick recalls the fields of Iowa as lush and full of farm animals. Now, when he visits his hometown of Cedar Rapids, he sees a more barren landscape. The shift, or as he describes it, “the collapse of Iowa,” inspired the seventh-generation Iowan to look into the wealth and power that’s shaped the state, and subsequently, the American agriculture and food systems. Frerick’s widely-praised book, Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America’s Food Industry, explores the titans who have amassed near monopolistic market domination of what we eat every day–and the systems that enabled them to amass power. 

Chapter by chapter, Frerick profiles a family or company dominating the hog, grain, coffee, dairy, berry, slaughter, or grocery industries. Some are household names like Driscols and Walmart; others, like the Batista family who run the world’s largest butchering company, keep their names off their products. The profiles cover how each baron came to and maintained power, whether through government corruption, rapid acquisitions, or developing production models that dodged labor or environmental regulations. 

The barons’ growth reveals how, in both visible and invisible ways, their products are intertwined in the larger food system. Ultimately, Frerick connects their actions—from building enormous hog confinements to skirting safety laws—to the various health and climate threats ailing communities across Iowa, America and the globe. Mother Jones recently caught up with Frerick to discuss the 2024 book and what it says against the backdrop of Trump’s plans, a growing MAHA movement, and skyrocketing food costs.

Where did your interest in agriculture and food systems begin? 

Cedar Rapids is a corn town, so much of your cereal, so much of your food, is manufactured there, and so it’s painted into the background.

Also, part of my family is from up in the part of Iowa that used to be the prettiest; The Driftless region with rolling hills, dairy; and now there’s no animals on the land. You smell them, but you don’t see them. And you see the collapse of the family farm which has hollowed out these towns.

There’s this imagery—people think of Iowa as like this Field of Dreams. But that’s not Iowa anymore. Field of Dreams Iowa died in my lifetime, and I think about that all the time.

How did you first learn about the agriculture barons?

I had an internship at a think tank, and they asked me to proofread school district data, and I sorted it by non-white, free and then reduced lunch rates; And I kept noticing the same seven small towns in Iowa. I was like, What’s going on here? Turns out they were all slaughterhouse towns. So I did my college thesis on this. I interviewed a principal where he told me about the additional support services that schools are required to bring because of the working poverty a lot of these students are growing up in. And in the next instant, he literally said, ‘The packers are great. They give me unlimited hot dogs for the back-to-school bash.’ And it was my advisor who said, ‘Do you not realize what’s going on there? That’s power. He can’t connect the fact that like all these issues are because of the slaughterhouse. These are modern day company towns.’

Your book centers on how these barons rose to become pillars of our global food system. How did they come to be? 

This laissez faire era rewards a race to the bottom and the most ruthless players. Like most hog farmers, they weren’t willing in Iowa to shove their pigs into a metal shed where they don’t see a blade of grass. You reward the worst actors. And I think so much of the current American economy gets the worst people winning.

“Iowa should be the Tuscany of North America. It has some of the world’s best soil yet it has an obesity crisis, a water crisis, and a cancer crisis.”

Also, I think the food industry is the most concentrated space in America, but also the least appreciated. Look at Cargill (a multinational company that trades agriculture commodities and produces ultra-processed ingredients like corn syrup). It blows people’s minds when I tell them they’re the largest private company in America–they’re bigger than the Koch brothers. No one knows who they are, because they have a lot of middlemen who are not consumer facing. Even when they are consumer facing, a lot of times they own multiple brands, so you don’t even realize how consolidated that space is because you have this illusion of choice.

How do the monopolies or oligopolies established affect the food we eat and what we pay? 

We spend more money than the United Kingdom, Spain, Mexico, Canada, Greece, Japan, France, Germany, Sweden, Australia, Italy. So it’s like literally, we spend $1,000 more per person per year than some in the United Kingdom. So right now, the system is expensive, which, first of all, we shouldn’t be shocked about. That’s economics 101: concentrated markets gouge. It’s what they do. But second, something that I’ve come to appreciate is how much the system makes bad tasting food. We’re actually paying more for garbage. 

And how do these barons impact the environment?

Textbook monopoly is innovation: taste and price. But the environment, everything in the environment, there is a shifting of cost. They call it negative externalities in economics. You see it in Iowa. I view Iowa now as an extraction colony, like it’s really a 19th century coal mining town in terms of the power dynamics. The family hog farmer essentially died in my lifetime and this mass of industrial hogs took its place. 

So Iowa has like 25 million hogs a year and they defecate three times more than us, so that’s manure of 75 million people. At the same time the regulatory structure has collapsed. And so Iowa is drowning in shit. The waterways were an open sewer, like 50 to 63 percent of the waterways in Iowa are too polluted for you to go in. 

And then the last scary new thing we’re seeing is Iowa has the second-highest cancer rate in the country. And it’s clear it’s tied to the agricultural system in Iowa. 

Iowa really is the canary in the coal mines of the American food system. Iowa should be the Tuscany of North America. It has some of the world’s best soil yet it has an obesity crisis, a water crisis, and a cancer crisis.

In February, the Senate confirmed Brooke Rollins as Trump’s USDA secretary. What can we expect from her leadership, and how does that look in comparison to the legacy of Tom Vilsack, the former USDA secretary?

More of the same. I really don’t see a policy difference between her and Vilsack. I would love to be proven wrong. To be fair, there hasn’t been a good secretary in my lifetime at USDA. But Vilsack failed to reign in the meat monopolies, these companies gouging everyone, gouging farmers, gouging at the store, employing children in slaughterhouses. He not only failed to do something, they actually got larger under the Biden administration. 

In the most recent election, the rising cost of groceries was a major issue. Still, since Trump won we’ve seen him claim it will be hard to lower the price of groceries. What role do these barons have in the pricing of goods? 

When you have so few players in the space, it’s so easy to act like a cartel and gouge. I think the best example, just the extent of the price gouging by the barons, is that McDonald’s is the largest buyer of beef in the world. Usually, you treat your largest customer the best: They say bark, you say woof. McDonald’s filed a lawsuit against the beef packers this fall for price fixing. So if you’re gouging your largest, best customer, that tells you everything. 

I think that the really scary thing now is even Walmart’s getting hurt. Walmart’s like the king of kings, it’s the head honcho. People judge your grocery store based on the price and quality of the meat and dairy case. And Walmart’s response to being gouged by the barons is taking things into its own hands and making vertical plays into both beef and dairy by building its own beef plant in Wichita and then three dairy plants in America. I believe it wants insight into cost structure, so that way it knows when it negotiates with these barons it knows what it costs to produce a gallon of milk. I think the most powerful person in the American food system right now is a Walmart buyer. 

Last congress extended the farm bill by one year as part of an effort to avert a government shutdown, so now it’ll likely be brought back up sometime this year. It’s become an industry defining bill. Can you share the gist of the farm bill and how it has shaped agriculture into a baron ruled system?

Essentially, you have a quarter of it incentivizing people to over produce grains (through crop insurance systems), and then the other three fourths of it is a food assistance subsidy to the working poor of America. And I think the Farm Bill is collapsing in front of us right now because [Congress] can’t push it through. They’re trying to essentially pass a status quo Farm Bill, and they can’t even get it done. And I think partly it’s the MAHA influence, where younger men are obsessed with their bodies and so they’re repulsed by the Farm Bill. I mean, in fact, we get subsidies for Oreos, but not healthy food. And so you’re kind of seeing that break off into the MAHA. Senate Republicans want to pass it. House Republicans are much more like, let’s blow this thing up. And I think that’s what’s gonna be really curious to see. 

It’s not like we’re eating more hogs. It’s more for export, and a lot of it’s to places like Mexico and China. Why are we destroying Iowa to feed China and Mexico? 

I think the most likely outcome, actually, is they’re going to gut SNAP [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program], which is basically going to screw poor people or the working poor. 

But again, one idea [Republicans] had, that I thought was a good idea, was they actually want to put SNAP under HHS, take it away from USDA. I think that’s a good idea. I don’t think they’ll actually do it. I assume everything they’re going to do is in the interest of the barons and the oligarchs. 

Does change have to happen at state and local level first? 

To me, that’s like the curse and blessing of the laboratories of democracy…You get things like unemployment insurance starting in Wisconsin and going national. Or, hopefully down the road, we see free school meals of Minnesota go national. But on the dark side, you see it play out too in the food system. In North Carolina, a state senator deregulated the hog industry that allowed this really exploitative industrial model to take hold and Iowa just copied it. One thing to keep in mind too about this hog production: It’s not like we’re eating more hogs. It’s more for export, and a lot of it’s to places like Mexico and China. Why are we destroying Iowa to feed China and Mexico? 

I really do think there’s no party more tied into China than the Republican Party of Iowa. I mean, (former Iowa governor) Terry Branstad was Trump’s ambassador to China. The whole model of Iowa is overproduction and dumping these surpluses abroad. They can’t imagine a world of like, ‘Maybe we do less industrial pork, maybe we grow carrots, maybe we grow sheep?’ The really dark undercurrent is there’s all the xenophobic rhetoric, but [Iowa Republicans] are the most tied into that model.

RFK Jr. and the MAHA movement seem keen to ban pesticides, seed oils, and ultraprocessed foods, many of which are central to some of the massive agriculture barons noted in your book, from Driscoll’s genetic work to Cargill’s high fructose corn syrup. How do you anticipate Big Ag industry leaders to respond to this? 

Well, first of all, I think they have already started exerting some influence because no MAHA people got into USDA. So like, let’s just start there, they don’t have power. My takeaway from that whole thing is there really is a bipartisan chance to do something meaningful. Here you have a weird coalition of everyone just not seeing the system work. I mean, that is, you have the MAHA types latching onto it. 

The barons tend to use the classic playbook. They drag things out. And so they’re going to try to delay the MAHA and hopefully the passion falls away. 

Another policy change that agriculture may face is navigating the ongoing tariffs. Some Canadians are refusing to purchase produce made in the US. How does it impact these big Ag businesses?

So much of the American Farm Bill now is designed to over produce a few things. So we essentially need to dump our surpluses abroad at the same time. These free trade agreements essentially allow the races to the bottom for produce production. Forty percent of your vegetables and 60 percent of fruit comes from outside the borders. Kind of like a T-shirt, when these supply chains move offshore, you see transparency collapse. 

“This system is incredibly fragile, and it’s not sustainable.”

But also keep in mind, farmers can’t compete on price, so they exit the market and then end up doing more corn and soy. These tariffs could break the current Farm Bill model in America, where we’re producing too many hogs for our consumption. We need to sell them to China. But also if a tariff war were to break out, what’s going to happen? What Trump did last time was essentially spend billions of dollars to do bailouts, to buy the surplus and take it off market. If anything, the tariffs are going to cost a lot of money.  

What gives me hope is this system is incredibly fragile, and it’s not sustainable, and it’s going to break at some point. What we’re seeing with eggs is going to become normal, because you’re playing Russian roulette with disease in this industrial meat and dairy system. When you pack that many genetically similar animals into a metal shed, you’re going to get these massive disease outbreaks, and they will only continue to happen. So at some point you got to be like, is it worth it, or do we need a different production model? And these super concentrated systems are fragile. They’re going to keep breaking. 

In the coffee baron chapter you note how in many cases researchers and economists earn a hefty income providing evidence that encourages monopolistic behavior. How does this impact everyday citizens? And what do you anticipate the future of this research industry? 

I think the most corrupt academic discipline in America right now is agricultural economics. When you start talking to folks, you realize every commodity has go-to hack academics. I talk about a certain Ag economist at Iowa State, who is just the go-to academic for the hog baron. Even though, for example, we know that working at a slaughterhouse is one of the most dangerous jobs in America, and the hog baron wants to speed up the kill lines to make more money, magically, this Ag economist says this is good for Iowa farmers. He’s also in business with a hog baron. He is a corporate witness for them, and he usually doesn’t disclose it. So not only is it corrupting the literature, it’s corrupting the public discourse. And, to your average American, here’s a fancy sounding title from an academic from a university saying this is not a real issue. It’s helping to hide the crisis among the workers, the climate, and the food system. 

In a time where agriculture is, as you note in your book, largely dominated by these oligopolies. Where is the most progress being made to disrupt these barons? 

There’s two questions I always get asked when I do book events. One is, do you worry about your safety, and it’s always from a nice old lady. The second one is always, and this is usually from audience members at the more coastal events: Why are these people voting against their economic interest? And that question always bothered me because it was a Democrat [Vilsack] in Iowa that undermined the rebellion of people fighting with hog barons. I think there’s a degree of people, especially in these more rural communities, that just don’t trust anyone anymore. They want to blow up the whole system. 

Here’s the thing: people for decades have been talking about monopolies, but no one’s done anything. We all agree that we’re being short changed by these barons. You have to articulate to folks what the system could be so that people feel like they can overcome that. 

Start locally. The first anti-monopoly laws in the world started in Iowa, were written by Iowa farmers mad about being gouged by grain elevators. It rippled across the country and then the federal government essentially did a version of that bill. There’s a lot of people doing it right. 

I really learned while writing this book that most people are trying to do the right thing. They’re just running uphill. And it’s just the greed of a few people holding us back. The system we have now is radical. So much of what we talked about is traditional. I just want animals on the land. 

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Read the full story here.
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Lifesize herd of puppet animals begins climate action journey from Africa to Arctic Circle

The Herds project from the team behind Little Amal will travel 20,000km taking its message on environmental crisis across the worldHundreds of life-size animal puppets have begun a 20,000km (12,400 mile) journey from central Africa to the Arctic Circle as part of an ambitious project created by the team behind Little Amal, the giant puppet of a Syrian girl that travelled across the world.The public art initiative called The Herds, which has already visited Kinshasa and Lagos, will travel to 20 cities over four months to raise awareness of the climate crisis. Continue reading...

Hundreds of life-size animal puppets have begun a 20,000km (12,400 mile) journey from central Africa to the Arctic Circle as part of an ambitious project created by the team behind Little Amal, the giant puppet of a Syrian girl that travelled across the world.The public art initiative called The Herds, which has already visited Kinshasa and Lagos, will travel to 20 cities over four months to raise awareness of the climate crisis.It is the second major project from The Walk Productions, which introduced Little Amal, a 12-foot puppet, to the world in Gaziantep, near the Turkey-Syria border, in 2021. The award-winning project, co-founded by the Palestinian playwright and director Amir Nizar Zuabi, reached 2 million people in 17 countries as she travelled from Turkey to the UK.The Herds’ journey began in Kinshasa’s Botanical Gardens on 10 April, kicking off four days of events. It moved on to Lagos, Nigeria, the following week, where up to 5,000 people attended events performed by more than 60 puppeteers.On Friday the streets of Dakar in Senegal will be filled with more than 40 puppet zebras, wildebeest, monkeys, giraffes and baboons as they run through Médina, one of the busiest neighbourhoods, where they will encounter a creation by Fabrice Monteiro, a Belgium-born artist who lives in Senegal, and is known for his large-scale sculptures. On Saturday the puppets will be part of an event in the fishing village of Ngor.The Herds’ 20,000km journey began in Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Photograph: Berclaire/walk productionsThe first set of animal puppets was created by Ukwanda Puppetry and Designs Art Collective in Cape Town using recycled materials, but in each location local volunteers are taught how to make their own animals using prototypes provided by Ukwanda. The project has already attracted huge interest from people keen to get involved. In Dakar more than 300 artists applied for 80 roles as artists and puppet guides. About 2,000 people will be trained to make the puppets over the duration of the project.“The idea is that we’re migrating with an ever-evolving, growing group of animals,” Zuabi told the Guardian last year.Zuabi has spoken of The Herds as a continuation of Little Amal’s journey, which was inspired by refugees, who often cite climate disaster as a trigger for forced migration. The Herds will put the environmental emergency centre stage, and will encourage communities to launch their own events to discuss the significance of the project and get involved in climate activism.The puppets are created with recycled materials and local volunteers are taught how to make them in each location. Photograph: Ant Strack“The idea is to put in front of people that there is an emergency – not with scientific facts, but with emotions,” said The Herds’ Senegal producer, Sarah Desbois.She expects thousands of people to view the four events being staged over the weekend. “We don’t have a tradition of puppetry in Senegal. As soon as the project started, when people were shown pictures of the puppets, they were going crazy.”Little Amal, the puppet of a Syrian girl that has become a symbol of human rights, in Santiago, Chile on 3 January. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty ImagesGrowing as it moves, The Herds will make its way from Dakar to Morocco, then into Europe, including London and Paris, arriving in the Arctic Circle in early August.

Dead, sick pelicans turning up along Oregon coast

So far, no signs of bird flu but wildlife officials continue to test the birds.

Sick and dead pelicans are turning up on Oregon’s coast and state wildlife officials say they don’t yet know why. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife says it has collected several dead brown pelican carcasses for testing. Lab results from two pelicans found in Newport have come back negative for highly pathogenic avian influenza, also known as bird flu, the agency said. Avian influenza was detected in Oregon last fall and earlier this year in both domestic animals and wildlife – but not brown pelicans. Additional test results are pending to determine if another disease or domoic acid toxicity caused by harmful algal blooms may be involved, officials said. In recent months, domoic acid toxicity has sickened or killed dozens of brown pelicans and numerous other wildlife in California. The sport harvest for razor clams is currently closed in Oregon – from Cascade Head to the California border – due to high levels of domoic acid detected last fall.Brown pelicans – easily recognized by their large size, massive bill and brownish plumage – breed in Southern California and migrate north along the Oregon coast in spring. Younger birds sometimes rest on the journey and may just be tired, not sick, officials said. If you find a sick, resting or dead pelican, leave it alone and keep dogs leashed and away from wildlife. State wildlife biologists along the coast are aware of the situation and the public doesn’t need to report sick, resting or dead pelicans. — Gosia Wozniacka covers environmental justice, climate change, the clean energy transition and other environmental issues. Reach her at gwozniacka@oregonian.com or 971-421-3154.Our journalism needs your support. Subscribe today to OregonLive.com.

50-Million-Year-Old Footprints Open a 'Rare Window' Into the Behaviors of Extinct Animals That Once Roamed in Oregon

Scientists revisited tracks made by a shorebird, a lizard, a cat-like predator and some sort of large herbivore at what is now John Day Fossil Beds National Monument

50-Million-Year-Old Footprints Open a ‘Rare Window’ Into the Behaviors of Extinct Animals That Once Roamed in Oregon Scientists revisited tracks made by a shorebird, a lizard, a cat-like predator and some sort of large herbivore at what is now John Day Fossil Beds National Monument Sarah Kuta - Daily Correspondent April 24, 2025 4:59 p.m. Researchers took a closer look at fossilized footprints—including these cat-like tracks—found at John Day Fossil Beds National Monument in Oregon. National Park Service Between 29 million and 50 million years ago, Oregon was teeming with life. Shorebirds searched for food in shallow water, lizards dashed along lake beds and saber-toothed predators prowled the landscape. Now, scientists are learning more about these prehistoric creatures by studying their fossilized footprints. They describe some of these tracks, discovered at John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, in a paper published earlier this year in the journal Palaeontologia Electronica. John Day Fossil Beds National Monument is a nearly 14,000-acre, federally protected area in central and eastern Oregon. It’s a well-known site for “body fossils,” like teeth and bones. But, more recently, paleontologists have been focusing their attention on “trace fossils”—indirect evidence of animals, like worm burrows, footprints, beak marks and impressions of claws. Both are useful for understanding the extinct creatures that once roamed the environment, though they provide different kinds of information about the past. “Body fossils tell us a lot about the structure of an organism, but a trace fossil … tells us a lot about behaviors,” says lead author Conner Bennett, an Earth and environmental scientist at Utah Tech University, to Crystal Ligori, host of Oregon Public Broadcasting’s “All Things Considered.” Oregon's prehistoric shorebirds probed for food the same way modern shorebirds do, according to the researchers. Bennett et al., Palaeontologia Electronica, 2025 For the study, scientists revisited fossilized footprints discovered at the national monument decades ago. Some specimens had sat in museum storage since the 1980s. They analyzed the tracks using a technique known as photogrammetry, which involved taking thousands of photographs to produce 3D models. These models allowed researchers to piece together some long-gone scenes. Small footprints and beak marks were discovered near invertebrate trails, suggesting that ancient shorebirds were pecking around in search of a meal between 39 million and 50 million years ago. This prehistoric behavior is “strikingly similar” to that of today’s shorebirds, according to a statement from the National Park Service. “It’s fascinating,” says Bennett in the statement. “That is an incredibly long time for a species to exhibit the same foraging patterns as its ancestors.” Photogrammetry techniques allowed the researchers to make 3D models of the tracks. Bennett et al., Palaeontologia Electronica, 2025 Researchers also analyzed a footprint with splayed toes and claws. This rare fossil was likely made by a running lizard around 50 million years ago, according to the team. It’s one of the few known reptile tracks in North America from that period. An illustration of a nimravid, an extinct, cat-like predator NPS / Mural by Roger Witter They also found evidence of a cat-like predator dating to roughly 29 million years ago. A set of paw prints, discovered in a layer of volcanic ash, likely belonged to a bobcat-sized, saber-toothed predator resembling a cat—possibly a nimravid of the genus Hoplophoneus. Since researchers didn’t find any claw marks on the paw prints, they suspect the creature had retractable claws, just like modern cats do. A set of three-toed, rounded hoofprints indicate some sort of large herbivore was roaming around 29 million years ago, probably an ancient tapir or rhinoceros ancestor. Together, the fossil tracks open “a rare window into ancient ecosystems,” says study co-author Nicholas Famoso, paleontology program manager at the national monument, in the statement. “They add behavioral context to the body fossils we’ve collected over the years and help us better understand the climate and environmental conditions of prehistoric Oregon,” he adds. Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Two teens and 5,000 ants: how a smuggling bust shed new light on a booming trade

Two Belgian 19-year-olds have pleaded guilty to wildlife piracy – part of a growing trend of trafficking ‘less conspicuous’ creatures for sale as exotic petsPoaching busts are familiar territory for the officers of Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), an armed force tasked with protecting the country’s iconic creatures. But what awaited guards when they descended in early April on a guesthouse in the west of the country was both larger and smaller in scale than the smuggling operations they typically encounter. There were more than 5,000 smuggled animals, caged in their own enclosures. Each one, however, was about the size of a little fingernail: 18-25mm.The cargo, which two Belgian teenagers had apparently intended to ship to exotic pet markets in Europe and Asia, was ants. Their enclosures were a mixture of test tubes and syringes containing cotton wool – environments that authorities say would keep the insects alive for weeks. Continue reading...

Poaching busts are familiar territory for the officers of Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), an armed force tasked with protecting the country’s iconic creatures. But what awaited guards when they descended in early April on a guesthouse in the west of the country was both larger and smaller in scale than the smuggling operations they typically encounter. There were more than 5,000 smuggled animals, caged in their own enclosures. Each one, however, was about the size of a little fingernail: 18-25mm.The samples of garden ants presented to the court. Photograph: Monicah Mwangi/ReutersThe cargo, which two Belgian teenagers had apparently intended to ship to exotic pet markets in Europe and Asia, was ants. Their enclosures were a mixture of test tubes and syringes containing cotton wool – environments that authorities say would keep the insects alive for weeks.“We did not come here to break any laws. By accident and stupidity we did,” says Lornoy David, one of the Belgian smugglers.David and Seppe Lodewijckx, both 19 years old, pleaded guilty after being charged last week with wildlife piracy, alongside two other men in a separate case who were caught smuggling 400 ants. The cases have shed new light on booming global ant trade – and what authorities say is a growing trend of trafficking “less conspicuous” creatures.These crimes represent “a shift in trafficking trends – from iconic large mammals to lesser-known yet ecologically critical species”, says a KWS statement.The unusual case has also trained a spotlight on the niche world of ant-keeping and collecting – a hobby that has boomed over the past decade. The seized species include Messor cephalotes, a large red harvester ant native to east Africa. Queens of the species grow to about 20-24mm long, and the ant sales website Ants R Us describes them as “many people’s dream species”, selling them for £99 per colony. The ants are prized by collectors for their unique behaviours and complex colony-building skills, “traits that make them popular in exotic pet circles, where they are kept in specialised habitats known as formicariums”, KWS says.Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx during the hearing. Photograph: Monicah Mwangi/ReutersOne online ant vendor, who asked not to be named, says the market is thriving, and there has been a growth in ant-keeping shows, where enthusiasts meet to compare housing and species details. “Sales volumes have grown almost every year. There are more ant vendors than before, and prices have become more competitive,” he says. “In today’s world, where most people live fast-paced, tech-driven lives, many are disconnected from themselves and their environment. Watching ants in a formicarium can be surprisingly therapeutic,” he says.David and Lodewijckx will remain in custody until the court considers a pre-sentencing report on 23 April. The ant seller says theirs is a “landmark case in the field”. “People travelling to other countries specifically to collect ants and then returning with them is virtually unheard of,” he says.A formicarium at a pet shop in Singapore. Photograph: Roslan Rahman/AFP/Getty ImagesScientists have raised concerns that the burgeoning trade in exotic ants could pose a significant biodiversity risk. “Ants are traded as pets across the globe, but if introduced outside of their native ranges they could become invasive with dire environmental and economic consequences,” researchers conclude in a 2023 paper tracking the ant trade across China. “The most sought-after ants have higher invasive potential,” they write.Removing ants from their ecosystems could also be damaging. Illegal exportation “not only undermines Kenya’s sovereign rights over its biodiversity but also deprives local communities and research institutions of potential ecological and economic benefits”, says KWS. Dino Martins, an entomologist and evolutionary biologist in Kenya, says harvester ants are among the most important insects on the African savannah, and any trade in them is bound to have negative consequences for the ecology of the grasslands.A Kenyan official arranges the containers of ants at the court. Photograph: Kenya Wildlife Service/AP“Harvester ants are seed collectors, and they gather [the seeds] as food for themselves, storing these in their nests. A single large harvester ant colony can collect several kilos of seeds of various grasses a year. In the process of collecting grass seeds, the ants ‘drop’ a number … dispersing them through the grasslands,” says Martins.The insects also serve as food for various other species including aardvarks, pangolins and aardwolves.Martins says he is surprised to see that smugglers feeding the global “pet” trade are training their sights on Kenya, since “ants are among the most common and widespread of insects”.“Insect trade can actually be done more sustainably, through controlled rearing of the insects. This can support livelihoods in rural communities such as the Kipepeo Project which rears butterflies in Kenya,” he says. Locally, the main threats to ants come not from the illegal trade but poisoning from pesticides, habitat destruction and invasive species, says Martins.Philip Muruthi, a vice-president for conservation at the African Wildlife Foundation in Nairobi, says ants enrich soils, enabling germination and providing food for other species.“When you see a healthy forest … you don’t think about what is making it healthy. It is the relationships all the way from the bacteria to the ants to the bigger things,” he says.

Belgian Teenagers Found With 5,000 Ants to Be Sentenced in 2 Weeks

Two Belgian teenagers who were found with thousands of ants valued at $9,200 and allegedly destined for European and Asian markets will be sentenced in two weeks

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Two Belgian teenagers who were found with thousands of ants valued at $9,200 and allegedly destined for European and Asian markets will be sentenced in two weeks, a Kenyan magistrate said Wednesday.Magistrate Njeri Thuku, sitting at the court in Kenya’s main airport, said she would not rush the case but would take time to review environmental impact and psychological reports filed in court before passing sentence on May 7.Belgian nationals Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, both 19 years old, were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house. They were charged on April 15 with violating wildlife conservation laws.The teens have told the magistrate that they didn’t know that keeping the ants was illegal and were just having fun.The Kenya Wildlife Service had said the case represented “a shift in trafficking trends — from iconic large mammals to lesser-known yet ecologically critical species.”Kenya has in the past fought against the trafficking of body parts of larger wild animals such as elephants, rhinos and pangolins among others.The Belgian teens had entered the country on a tourist visa and were staying in a guest house in the western town of Naivasha, popular among tourists for its animal parks and lakes.Their lawyer, Halima Nyakinyua Magairo, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that her clients did not know what they were doing was illegal. She said she hoped the Belgian embassy in Kenya could “support them more in this judicial process.”In a separate but related case, Kenyan Dennis Ng’ang’a and Vietnamese Duh Hung Nguyen were charged after they were found in possession of 400 ants in their apartment in the capital, Nairobi.KWS had said all four suspects were involved in trafficking the ants to markets in Europe and Asia, and that the species included messor cephalotes, a distinctive, large and red-colored harvester ant native to East Africa.The ants are bought by people who keep them as pets and observe them in their colonies. Several websites in Europe have listed different species of ants for sale at varied prices.The 5,400 ants found with the four men are valued at 1.2 million Kenyan shillings ($9,200), according to KWS.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Feb. 2025

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