Dodge County, incorporated Big Ag and the undoing of rural America

Raised on southeastern Minnesota farmland acquired in 1925 by her grandfather, and now a family-law attorney in Minneapolis, the author addresses the alarming shift in American agriculture hidden in plain view: the wholesale conversion of family-owned grazing lands to corporate-owned feedlots--or concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs)--turning independent farmers into "contract growers" who no longer own their livestock but provide the labor and upfront investment to manage the operations. Not only have such practices hollowed out once-vibrant farming communities, they've also placed devastating pressures on air and water quality. For example, the author cites the 49 million tons of manure produced in 2020 by 23,726 livestock feedlots in the state, equal to that produced by 95 million people--more than 16 times that state's population. As a litigator whose own family tried pushing back against the dozen CAFOs within a three-mile radius of their land, Eayrs illuminates the ironclad ties between Big Ag and local and federal government that make any reforms almost impossible. It's a terribly disturbing account that nevertheless offers a glimmer of hope in the small farmers nationwide who are promoting soil health in polycultural planting, no-till practices, cover-crop implementation, and--who knew?--pastured animals.

A fierce denunciation of corporate agriculture by a working farmer and attorney. "Corporate agriculture has not only destroyed the rural spirit and harmony of living as one with the land but of living with one another as well." So writes Trom Eayrs toward the end of her book, equal parts manifesto and memoir. A constant presence is her father, the grandson of a Norwegian immigrant who made a hard living in the red-barn country of southern Minnesota, where farmers learned that the longevity of their fields hinged on taking care of them--and taking care of the surrounding community as well. Now that land ownership, as Trom Eayrs notes, has been unlinked from the bonds of family, some good has resulted, "giving women access to land ownership and property rights, allowing racial and ethnic minorities to become landowners, and creating more avenues for upward social and economic mobility." Yet, she adds, it has also opened the door for corporate ownership, either outright or via leasing farms whose owners become employees. In this regard, she observes, a leased farm just a mile from her family farm in Dodge County earned what on paper appeared to be a sizable source of income, but once expenses were deducted, the net monthly profit was only $41. Those "razor-thin margins" explain why growers use the cheapest possible immigrant labor, cram as much livestock into "concentrated animal feeding operations" as possible, and take no care of the land; the result is meat laced with antibiotics, polluted rivers, and a depopulated countryside. All this will continue, Trom Eayrs concludes, until the federal government stops subsidizing Big Ag and abetting "corporate lawlessness." A smart, militant update to Wes Jackson's and Wendell Berry's writings on smallholder farming, her book demands immediate reforms. An indignant, righteously wrathful defense of the family farm in the face of corporate voracity. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

1 Moving to the Country "Living in the country can be a wonderful way of life for your family. The experience will be more rewarding and enjoyable if you recognize the challenges of rural living and plan accordingly."--Minnesota Farm Bureau Foundation, "Moving to the Country" It was fall harvest in Dodge County. As I had done hundreds of times before, I drove up the long driveway leading to the farmhouse on my family's 760-acre farm, our slice of heaven in the once-idyllic rural countryside of southeastern Minnesota. After I parked, I spotted my father, Lowell Trom, in the field just south of the house. I made a beeline for the field and joined him on the combine. At the ripe age of eighty-nine, my father's hands were rough and weathered, yet he still found such joy in fall harvest. For farmers, fall harvest is the emotional equivalent of bringing in the herd for cattle ranchers. We watched the yield monitor and smiled when it jumped to over two hundred bushels per acre. Technology had changed considerably during my father's lifetime, but Lowell expertly traversed the field in his beloved John Deere combine equipped with an autosteer system. The yellow corn, like liquid gold, poured out of the hopper and into the grain wagons waiting at the end of the field. From there, my brother Jim pulled the wagon to the farm site, where the grain was dried to just the right moisture content, then stored in towering steel grain bins. This harvest would be the last with my father, who passed away the following year, in October 2019, at the age of ninety. His twilight years were consumed by a series of legal battles that he and my mother initiated in 2014 to protect our family farm from the encroachment of industrial factory farms that had scarred the rural landscape, polluted the air and water, harmed the economy, and affected human health in Dodge County. Despite the lasting emotional costs of these lawsuits, I wouldn't hesitate to help them all over again. As my father once said of the corporate takeover of Dodge, "Enough is enough." The Trom family farm is the heart of this story, and it's where we begin. The land was originally acquired in 1925 by my grandfather Elmer, who was raised by my great-grandparents on a neighboring farm in Dodge. Our operation is unusual for its meticulous layout, the result of decades of careful planning. If you look at an aerial photo of the farm, its core buildings--the farmhouse, the grain leg, the equipment sheds, the grain bins--are surrounded on four sides by a towering perimeter of more than five hundred arborvitae trees, which my father and uncle had planted in straight rows going north and south or east and west to provide a protective barrier from the high winds crossing the prairie. For many years my mother, Evelyn, planted pink petunias each spring all around the farmhouse. As her Parkinson's advanced, she no longer planted fresh flowers, instead opting for perennials. To this day, her gardens and flowering crab trees burst with color each spring. The greenery and flowers are joined by wildlife making their appearances in seasonal turn: tundra and trumpeter swans in early spring; great blue herons and egrets in late spring; foxes, rabbits, and bald eagles in the summer; and, in the winter, the elusive snowy owl. In my childhood memories of growing up on the farm, nothing was ever out of place. You didn't just drive along the field; you walked the field and picked up rocks. You didn't just mow the lawn; you carefully trimmed around each tree and building. You didn't just plant the fields; you pulled weeds and cut "volunteer" corn out of the bean fields. If there wasn't work, I think my parents created work to keep us six kids busy. Today, the Trom farm looks much as it did during my childhood, notwithstanding the painstaking improvements in layout and technology made over the years, a reflection of my father's commitment to the operation, his pride and joy. But when you leave our land and turn onto the rural township road, it's a different universe. You are abruptly confronted with the realities of modern agriculture and industrial-scale hog production, and they aren't pretty. Excerpted from Dodge County, Incorporated: Big Ag and the Undoing of Rural America by Sonja Trom Eayrs All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.