دانلود کتاب بارون ها – پول، قدرت و فساد صنایع غذایی آمریکا

When I was young, my family and I would visit relatives in a corner of northeast Iowa known as the Driftless region. As we drove through green rolling hills, I’d stare out the window at pastures dotted with dairy cows and hogs. Corn was common, of course, but so were apple orchards and other crops. The landscape was ali e. I still go up to the Driftless; my parents park their camper up there to this day. But the land is now brown and barren, except during the few months of the year when corn and soybeans grow. These two commodities have spread like a prairie fi e, and the apples and other crops that used to be grown all over the state are now sourced from well beyond its borders. The road to the Driftless used to pass through vibrant small towns, but they’ve since been bypassed by multimillion-dollar highways that were built only so these commodities can leave the state a few minutes quicker. Thelocal businesses have closed, replaced by national chains on the outskirts of town. A state that was once referred to as the “Middle Land”—both because of its geographic location right in the heart of the continental United States and because of its moderate politics and strong middle class—is now defined by its reactionary political landscape and decaying towns. The most jarring change is that the animals have disappeared from view. At some point, they started vanishing: first pigs, then cows. The red barns that used to house them sit abandoned or have been knocked down to plant more corn or beans. But even though you no longer see them, the hogs aren’t gone. When you get a few miles outside town, you begin to sense—first smell, then see—clusters of massive windowless sheds. You would never guess that each one of them holds almost 2,500 pigs, until the thick stench of manure wafts in your direction. At this point, the countryside is so industrial that it no longer feels like countryside at all. I initially set out to write this book as a way to figu e out why my home state has changed so dramatically since my childhood. Agriculture is to Iowa what motion pictures are to Hollywood, the cornerstone of the state’s economy and the root of its identity. The state is blessed with some of the world’s best soil: “black gold,” which, coupled with consistently good rainfall, makes for ideal farming conditions. I wanted to understand how this blessing has, over the past forty years, turned into a curse. But as I dug into that question, it became clear to me that these impacts go far beyond the state’s borders. Researching and writing this book has taken me across the country, from the Pajaro Valley in California to the remnants of the Grand Kankakee Marsh in Indiana and from the deserts of New Mexico to the booming towns of Northwest Arkansas. Though it’s an American story at its heart, it’s one that involves places as far-flung as exico, Germany, and Brazil.