Dodge County Inc. // University of Nebraska Press, 2024

This books takes on the Goliath of Big Agriculture, exposing its lies and propaganda alongside its designed destruction of ecosystems, the environment, and the delicate social fabric that makes up rural America. It challenges—and helps to educated the reader to challenge—the for-profit, Neoliberalist agenda that has, over the last four and a half decades, stagnated or lowered wages, destroyed unions and cut through all social safety nets for the working class. In a free society, books like this would be taught in every classroom from kindergarten through graduate school.

On a personal note, I live only an short hour-long drive from Dodge County, in the Northeast corner of Iowa. I am from Iowa. I spent much of my childhood on gravel roads in rural America. I have worked on a farm, rotationally grazing cattle and milking a cow. I have many friends who own small, sustainable farms. Over the years, I have seen the destruction caused by corporations and their greed throughout the Midwest. I thought I knew something about Big Agriculture before reading this book—I was shocked to learn so much more.

On another personal note, I came to this book through the Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (ICCI) book club. If you are not familiar with ICCI or organizations like it, please check out their work—it’s a grassroots effort to make Iowa a better place to live for everyone, and could be a model for change elsewhere.

Dodge County Inc.—Read this book if you want to understand rural America.