austinfrerick.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

Honored for Barons to be included on this list by the American Library Association 🥳🤓

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This is why I love talking to folks -- you hear about really cool local programs bubbling up.

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Loved hearing @austinfrerick.bsky.social speak tonight at #UWOshkosh on the Food system oligarchs. Austin added this slide to his program after hearing about it at the #WiscondinFarmersUnion conference. #eatlocal

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“The Farm Bill is not even for farmers anymore,” Frerick added. “It’s for Pepsi.”

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The disproportionate control of an ultra-wealthy few over our political system has been made frighteningly clear. Thanks to @austinfrerick.bsky.social for explaining how this dynamic harms our food system.

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Amid a deregulatory blitz, the Meat Institute, an industry lobbying group, pushes for rollback on environmental regulations, worker protections and food safety.

submitted 14 days ago • 8 comments

“You want a regulatory system where consumers know they’re getting a healthy, safe product that was produced in a way that was ethical,” says @austinfrerick.bsky.social. “When you get rid of that, you’re incentivizing the worst people.”

submitted 13 days ago • 6 comments

The Dairy Baron in my book: "Fairlife’s big gains coincide with the Ozempic craze... Despite being about 3x the price of traditional milk, retail sales topped $1B in 2022 — up 1,000% from reportedly $90M in 2015 when it went nationwide."

submitted 13 days ago • 1 comment

Check out my interview w/@demystifysci.bsky.social -- we talk about everything from chain restaurants to the point below "You just quickly realize the BS of how hollowness that language is, but it's designed to keep you out, so you don't understand what's going on." www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGsn...

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Honored to present Barons at Yale 🤗

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#iowa Follow @austinfrerick.bsky.social

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“Concentrated markets gouge. It’s what they do. You see innovation and quality decline,” @austinfrerick.bsky.social says. “Once you add in the cost, the negative externalities, all the pollution stuff, it’s even more expensive. So we’re being doubly-screwed, to be blunt.” @sentientmedia.org

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“We’re basically destroying rural communities in the Midwest, notably Iowa, to feed foreign nations,” Frerick says. “The environmental destruction these production models do and that says something when it’s cheaper to do it here than in China.”

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“The part of the reason why I chose to call my book Barons is that I want to harken back to the Robber Barons of yesterday, because I want to show people we've been here before. We know what to do. We're not talking AI, we're talking hogs.”

submitted 20 days ago • 0 comments

Frerick said the USDA’s approach was almost identical to the first Trump Admin’s. Biden USDA Sec Tom Vilsack may have adopted the pro-competition rhetoric but he made “no substantive difference” and the ag industry got more concentrated overall, he argued.

submitted 21 days ago • 0 comments

Most states across the country allow hunters to kill overpopulating deer and donate them to food banks. However, most states don't test that meat for lead fragments, putting folks at risk. Blockbuster piece by @ninaelkadi.com in @sentientmedia.org

submitted 22 days ago • 2 comments

I'm honored to be @foodandwater.bsky.social 's Book of the Year 🥳 Join if yah can tomorrow night. I'll be talking with their Founder & Executive Director Wenonah Hauter about it as well as taking questions.

submitted 28 days ago • 0 comments

This is essential reading. Right now. @austinfrerick.bsky.social bookshop.org/p/books/baro... #booksky

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"In 2018, USDA designated Salmonella in “not ready-to-eat” breaded stuffed chicken products an “adulterant”—a poisonous or deleterious substance—if present at certain levels. However, since that time, USDA has not finalized any new or updated standards"

submitted 34 days ago • 1 comment

Big Peanut - Two companies control 80% of the peanut market. #AgTwitter

submitted 35 days ago • 2 comments

Embrassing. This is nothing more than a slap on the wrist for repeat criminal offenders. "Department of Labor said it entered an agreement with JBS USA in which the meatpacker will provide $4 million to assist individuals and communities affected by unlawful child labor practices nationwide"

submitted 40 days ago • 1 comment

"Industry influenced research, helped shape policy around product"

submitted 58 days ago • 0 comments

Another destructive thing from ethanol -->> It's driving the Cancer Crisis in the Corn Belt "Extended periods of 8 and 9 would be in that concentration range where mounting scientific evidence suggests you might need to worry about things like different forms of cancer"

submitted 58 days ago • 2 comments

Missing point - this is by design. The Farm Bill is designed to overproduce a few things and requires massive taxpayer bailouts when the demand isn't there. It's also why you get dumb things like ethanol to soak up the overproduction of corn.

submitted 64 days ago • 1 comment

Fascinating ray of hope story from Madeline Heim I bought wild rice on a whim in Bemidji, MN, last year, and we've been obsessed with it since -- hands down our favorite type of rice.

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As companies amass power, Frerick told me, “data brokers become more effective,” thereby encouraging more consolidation: “It’s a system that reinforces itself." But the most important move, Frerick says, is simply to enforce existing laws.

submitted 66 days ago • 1 comment

Norway on track to meet goal of eliminating sales of fossil-fuel-powered cars next year. What this says for here --->> Ethanol's days are numbered. The hope post ethanol --->> put animals back on the land.

submitted 70 days ago • 1 comment

Heck yeah! So deserved. One of the best public servants 🇺🇸 has ever had 💚

submitted 71 days ago • 0 comments

Ray of hope - I just heard about this really cool new program this past weekend in Wisconsin. Such a brilliant way to scale local food and root it in culture. Perfect world -->> The next Farm Bill would expand this program nationwide.

submitted 71 days ago • 1 comment

Special thanks to the Wisconsin Farmers Union for letting me keynote their convention and talk Barons last night 🧑‍🌾🐮❤️ I also joked to someone that it felt like a HS reunion too with so many friends there including my fav Jack-of-all-trades Sarah Lloyd. 🤗

submitted 72 days ago • 2 comments

👏👏👏 to DOJ/FTC (this is why political appointees matter) In food, you really did see the worst and best of Biden's political appointments: Khan/Kanter on one hand and Vilsack on the other.

submitted 77 days ago • 0 comments

In many cases, manure spill violators have multiple offenses and face very few real consequences. The fines are laughably small. Sometimes, there isn't even a fine if there is an "emergency" The requested improvements are years late. They get to keep "feeding and fueling the world"

submitted 77 days ago • 1 comment

The real numbers are probably worse. We have got to hold Big Ag accountable.

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In the last decade, Iowa had nearly 200 manure spills and collectively the fines only added up to $636,808. And these are only the spills we know about since they're self-reporting... Incredible new report from @foodandwater.bsky.social

submitted 77 days ago • 1 comment