Book Birthdays celebrate one year of a book’s life in social media posts, reviews, and more. This month we’re saying Happy First Book Birthday to Dodge County, Incorporated (Bison Books, 2024) by Sonja Trom Eayrs.
About the Book:
In 2014 Sonja Trom Eayrs’s parents filed the first of three lawsuits against Dodge County officials and their neighbors, one of the few avenues available to them to challenge installation of a corporate factory farm near their intergenerational family farm in Dodge County, Minnesota. For years they’d witnessed the now widely known devastation wrought by industrial hog operations—inhumane treatment of animals and people, pollution, the threat of cancer clusters, and more. They’d had enough. They also deeply understood an effect of Big Ag rarely discussed in mainstream media—the hollowing-out of their lifelong farming community and economy in service of the corporate bottom line.
In a compelling firsthand account of one family’s efforts to stand against corporate takeover, Dodge County, Incorporated tells a story of corporate malfeasance. Starting with the late 1800s, when her Norwegian great-grandfather immigrated to Dodge County, Trom Eayrs tracks the changes to farming over the years that ultimately gave rise to the disembodied corporate control of today’s food system. Trom Eayrs argues that far from being an essential or inextricable part of American life, corporatism can and should be fought and curbed, not only for the sake of land, labor, and water but for democracy itself.
Awards:
Winner of the 2025 Midwest Book Award
Finalist for the 2025 Minnesota Book Award
Reviews:
“This fascinating exposé has the potential to impact our environment, and everyone who farms or eats, buys or sells groceries.”—Jean Lukesh, Roundup Magazine
“An indignant, righteously wrathful defense of the family farm in the face of corporate voracity.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Eayrs illuminates the ironclad ties between Big Ag and local and federal government that makes any reforms almost impossible. It’s a terribly disturbing account that nevertheless offers a glimmer of hope in small farmers nationwide who are promoting soil health in polycultural planting, no-till practices, cover-crop implementation, and—who knew?—pastured animals.”—Alan Moores, Booklist Starred Review
“Rooted in the intimate experiences of Sonja Trom Eayrs’s farming family, Dodge County, Inc. is a powerful manifesto against the excesses of factory farming.”—Willem Marx, Foreword Reviews
“Family farms have historically been a source of wealth and power in rural America. But greed and greater corporate consolidation in agriculture have hollowed out rural communities and forced family farms out of business. Sonja Trom Eayrs rings the alarm in Dodge County, Incorporated, speaking poignantly from her personal experience about how the American dream in southern Minnesota has been taken away from so many. It also reminds us that the people have the power to fight back and reclaim our broken food system for farmers, rural communities, and all Americans.”—Cory Booker, U.S. senator (New Jersey) and member of the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry
In the Media:
Heartland Politics with Robin Johnson
On Social Media:
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js★ Just published a new episode of Food Sleuth Radio: Sonja Eayrs, discusses her book, Dodge County Inc.: Big Ag and the Undoing of Rural America. Listen: https://t.co/l4Y38js5Mf
— Melinda Hemmelgarn (@food_sleuth) February 21, 2025
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsSonja Eayrs' book, "Dodge County, Incorporated: Big Ag and the Undoing of Rural America" has been named a finalist for the Minnesota Book Awards. #hogs #pork #eatsact #prop12 #stopfactoryfarming #farmbill cc: @RepAngieCraig @SenAmyKlobuchar @SenTinaSmith https://t.co/3SObYpAaLp
— CMAonX (@CMAonX) February 11, 2025
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