Iowa author discusses ag ‘barons’ in new book
Food prices continue to rise but farmers aren’t receiving a larger cut of the profits. Who’s making all that money? An Iowa author spoke with Our Quad Cites News via Zoom to explain.
Austin Frerick, author of the new book, “Barons: Money, Power and the Corruption of America’s Food Industry,” says that “barons,” a term usually given to oil company bosses in the 19th century, have manipulated laws and policies for their benefit. They rose to power after the deregulation of the American food industry, which consolidated wealth into the hands of a very few.
“I have seven different barons in my book; I have hog, I have grain, I have grocery, coffee, berry, slaughtering and dairy,” said Frerick, a native of Cedar Rapids. “I picked each baron to tell a bigger (story) about the food system. My grain chapter is really about the farm bill.”
His coffee chapter doesn’t discuss plantations being bought up by a corporation, but instead, companies that sell coffee. “That chapter is about the story of the secret German family that entered the U.S. coffee market in 2012 and bought a little company called Pete’s. Within 10 years, they bought tons of coffee companies and now they sell more coffee than Starbucks. You’ve never heard of them, but you’ve heard of their brands like Panera, Krispy Kremes, the little Keurig cups, Caribou Coffee. That whole chapter is really about the changes in antimonopoly laws in America. You could not have done this just a few decades ago.”
Frerick traces the changes in antitrust laws to a failed nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court. “I focus on Robert Bork; he’s most famously known for being President Reagan’s failed Supreme Court nominee. He spent his academic career basically dismantling antimonopoly laws in this country and ushering in this pro monopoly framework where companies can buy each other so long as they say prices are lower for consumers. You can find any economist to give you those numbers.”
The book was born from a conversation in a dive bar back in 2018, when Fred Hubbell and Kim Reynolds were vying for the governor’s seat in Iowa. “I didn’t know this at the time, but Iowa doesn’t have campaign contribution limits. This political person was telling me that the largest donor in Iowa was this hog farmer who had given the (now) governor over $300,000.”
While consolidating companies may sound good on paper, that’s not the reality, says Frerick. “It’s a balance, it’s a scale, you do get efficiencies, but keep in mind the goal of a corporation is monopoly, that’s where profits are.”
He says Americans may be surprised to see how much more they’re paying for food than people in Europe. “Dollar for dollar, most Western democracies spend less on food than we do. Especially in the meat area, we’re really being gouged. It’s not just what you pay at the store, it’s the farmers. What you’re paying in beef is going up and up every year, but what that cattle rancher is getting flat.” Frerick says a Brazilian family empire is gouging cattle ranchers. “To me, we’re just at another Gilded Age moment where we just need old fashioned trust busting, like we did a century ago.”
During his research, Frerick discovered what it means to be a baron. “You become a baron because you’re willing to cross ethical lines other people aren’t willing to cross,” he said. “Most farmers weren’t willing to stuff their animals into a metal shed. Most corporate businesspeople weren’t willing to bribe politicians.” He said the Brazilian company admitted to bribing over 1800 Brazilian politicians.
When a large company buys another one, quality declines, Frerick says. “You’re paying more and more, and the quality goes down. A lot of Americans think the food quality is not what it used to be.” In his chapter on berries, he mentions Driscoll’s and offshoring produce. “It used to be your apple came from somewhere in the county. Now it’s being picked by, in a lot of instances, children and not in the most environmentally safe conditions. When that apple travels halfway around the world, it’s not that good tasting.”
Frerick says lawmakers can take action but haven’t. “In Iowa, for example, we have a rule on the book as a state called the Packer Ban. You cannot own the animal you slaughter. If I were to enforce it, you would essentially break up most of the meat companies.”
Many may be surprised to learn that the largest pork company in the U.S. and Asia’s largest meat processing company are owned by the same company, the WH Group. “They’re also the largest owner of hogs in America, so if Brenna Bird, Iowa’s attorney general, wanted to enforce that rule to essentially break that company up, we could do that at a national level. When you learned about monopolies in school, you learned about Teddy Roosevelt, you learned about meat monopolies. This isn’t rocket science, it’s just a matter of political courage.”
Food monopolies sound depressing, but there are ways consumers can fight back. “It’s easy to focus on the bad, but there’s a lot of people doing the right thing. It’s really just a few greedy people holding us back.” Frerick says buying from local sources makes a big difference, both residential and commercial. “Get that farmer who’s doing grass fed dairy, get them that contract with your local university, with your local school. It’s good politics; who doesn’t want the beef served to the local school district coming from Iowa and Illinois beef farmers instead of the Brazilian rainforest? You’re keeping your money local, it’s better tasting, better for the climate.” He advises grocery shoppers to “vote with their wallets” by visiting farmers’ markets.
Frerick will deliver a presentation on “Barons: Money, Power and the Corruption of America’s Food Industry” at Augustana College’s Hanson Hall of Science, 738 35th Street in Rock Island on Tuesday, April 9 at 10:30 a.m. The event is free.
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