Alum Austin Frerick (MPA ’14) will discuss his new book, “Barons: Money, Power and the Corruption of America’s Food Industry“.
About the speaker
Frerick is a Thurman Arnold Fellow at Yale, 7th generation Iowan, 1st generation college grad, and alumnus from UW-Madison LaFollette School of Public Affairs. Frerick paints a stark portrait of corporate consolidation and its consequences, especially to rural communities. He presents market solutions to consolidation, such as changes to federal agencies that monitor and ensure fair markets, reforms that put animals back on the land, improvements to labor conditions, and sunsetting the Farm Bill.
“As a society, we make decisions about how markets are structured, about the rules that govern them and what constitutes fair play, about who holds power and who does not. Once we acknowledge how these decisions have shaped the food system we have now, we can opt to create a different system that better reflects our values.”
Event hosts
- La Follette School of Public Affairs
- UW Center for Cooperatives
- Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics
- Department of Community and Environmental Sociology
- Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems
Contact
Michelle Miller, mmmille6@wisc.edu
