Book Club meets on the last Wednesday of the month (unless otherwise noted) to discuss topics surrounding land, history, ecology, and community.

Barons : Money, Power, and the Corruption of America's Food Industry by Austin Frerick

Barons is the story of seven corporate titans, their rise to power, and the consequences for everyone else. Take Mike McCloskey, Chairman of Fair Oaks Farms. In a few short decades, he went from managing a modest dairy herd to running the Disneyland of agriculture, where school children ride trams through mechanized warehouses filled with tens of thousands of cows that never see the light of day. What was the key to his success? Hard work and exceptional business savvy? Maybe. But more than anything else, Mike benefitted from deregulation of the American food industry, a phenomenon that has consolidated wealth in the hands of select tycoons, and along the way, hollowed out the nation’s rural towns and local businesses.

Free tickets to this event are available here.

Please email caitlin@churchtowndairy.org with any Book Club questions or to be added to the Book Club mailing list.