Perilous Bounty: The Looming Collapse of American Farming and How We Can Prevent It

by Tom Philpott

New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice

An unsettling journey into the disaster-bound American food system, and an exploration of possible solutions, from leading food politics commentator and former farmer Tom Philpott.

More than a decade after Michael Pollan's game-changing The Omnivore's Dilemma transformed the conversation about what we eat, a combination of global diet trends and corporate interests have put American agriculture into a state of "quiet emergency," from dangerous drought in California--which grows more than 50 percent of the fruits and vegetables we eat--to catastrophic topsoil loss in the "breadbasket" heartland of the United States. Whether or not we take heed, these urgent crises of industrial agriculture will define our future.

In Perilous Bounty , veteran journalist and former farmer Tom Philpott explores and exposes the small handful of seed and pesticide corporations, investment funds, and magnates who benefit from the trends that imperil us, with on-the-ground dispatches featuring the scientists documenting the damage and the farmers and activists who are valiantly and inventively pushing back.

Resource scarcity looms on the horizon, but rather than pointing us toward an inevitable doomsday, Philpott shows how the entire wayward ship of American agriculture could be routed away from its path to disaster. He profiles the farmers and communities in the nation's two key growing regions developing resilient, soil-building, water-smart farming practices, and readying for the climate shocks that are already upon us; and he explains how we can help move these methods from the margins to the mainstream.

Genres: Nonfiction, Food, Agriculture, Environment, Politics, Science, Climate Change

256 pages, Paperback

First published August 11, 2020

Reviews

[Les Dart · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m a Midwest grain farmer and face the issues that are documented in this book. I think Philpott’s assessment is correct and he does a fine job of explaining some of the existential threats facing the American corn belt. Namely, the loss of soil is one threat that we battle, and there are no easy solutions that meet the current economic paradigm under which we operate.
I was also really intrigued by his reportage of the threats to the California Central Valley and the consequences to the nation if those threats materialize.
A couple of things with which I slightly disagree with the author. First, while it is true that cover crops have the potential to improve Corn Belt soil, Philpott glosses over how incredibly difficult and risky cover crops are to manage. They hold a lot of promise, but they can also wreck an operation if things turn sideways. I’ve used cover crops for the past eight years. Secondly, Philpott conveys a common fallacy near the book’s end. While discussing corn ethanol production, he mentions that part of the corn crop is now diverted to manufacture ethanol. And, yes, that is true, but Philpott fails to mention that a byproduct of the process is livestock feed. So a large amount of corn diverted to ethanol production becomes livestock feed anyway. These are minor oversights.

This book is well written and a great read for the layperson curious about the state of industrial ag in the US. I highly recommend it.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Amidst Joe Biden's recent spate of secretary nominations, I stumbled upon an Intercept article that, among other complaints such as his dismissal of food and worker safety measures and his coziness with Big Ag companies that squeeze farmers, criticized Tom Vilsack (who also served as Obama's Secretary of Agriculture from 2009-17) for his strong support of ethanol as a renewable biofuel. Perilous Bounty was referenced in this light, and as a Midwesterner whose rural surroundings for much of the year are endless corn and soybean fields (and one whose forebears farmed), I couldn't wait to read it.

As detailed in the book's synopsis and numerous other reviews, it isn't just about corn mono-cropping and the dubious environmental "benefits" of ethanol. Rather, it is a dual case study of the myriad water shortages in the Central Valley of California (where a staggering percentage of our vegetables are grown) and the endless corn and soybean fields from Nebraska to Ohio and from Minnesota to Missouri, epitomized by the prolific plains of Iowa, whose soil is deteriorating at an alarming rate because of intensive and unsustainable farming practices. Throughout both of these case studies, Philpott weds the poor and increasingly desperate practices of farmers and corporations with the increasingly erratic weather patterns brought about by anthropogenic climate change, showing how they fuel one another in a vicious feedback loop.

While California's Central Valley is prone to extreme cycles of drought and flooding according to the available geological record, one learns how the reduced Sierra Nevada snowmelt in a warmer period leads to higher groundwater usage, which increases land sinks (subsidence), which in turn damages water infrastructure, requiring more and more groundwater usage as the situation worsens. Add in the continued unwillingness of humanity to address global warming and it is quickly evident how doomed these farming practices are. Philpott does well to include these climate discussions, but his authoritativeness and confidence wither a bit as he ventures out of the fields of the Central Valley and into the climate science about "atmospheric rivers" that bring the region's water from the South Pacific. Although he doesn't fully articulate the trends toward oligarchy in the region's farming, the brief sections on it are a welcome and vital inclusion because the concentration of industry is just as much of a threat to sustainable farming as extreme weather (industrial agriculture, of course, contributes heavily to climate change).

Traveling halfway across the country, Philpott shifts his focus to Iowa, a mono-cropping behemoth of unimaginable scale. These chapters are enthralling to say the least. First, one gets a glimpse of the surprising prevalence of corn and soybeans in our lives: their derivative products make up 40% of the calories in the entire American diet (if you read ingredient lists and look up words you will start to see how this is possible). After highlighting the scale, usages, and global trading of corn and soybeans, Philpott shifts his attention to the precariousness of it all—the alarming soil erosion scarring fields and flooding ditches and streams across the countryside; the monopolistic abuse of farmers by GMO seed and chemical giants like Bayer (which took over Monsanto) and Corteva (Dow/DuPont); and the complete abandonment of cover crops like alfalfa or clover, which, avoiding the deleterious impacts of mono-cropping, used to provide the soil with more nutrients and organic matter, all while giving it more absorption and less runoff during the heavy spring rains. It is all rather fascinating stuff (however depressing it may be), and Philpott describes these topics in a way that a layperson can understand, though he provides enough technical and critical language to make it a rewarding read.

Despite the extensive list of perilous conditions in these two case studies—and U.S. agriculture more broadly—Philpott manages to incorporate a pleasantly surprising list of solutions, however hard it may seem to see any of them being realized. Tucked into the failures of these regions are some brief glimpses of farmers doing things differently, eschewing industry trends and catching the eye of nearby researchers. An organic farmer in northeast Iowa uses non-GMO seeds from a small seed house in Minnesota and works winter rye into his crop rotation to break the disastrous mono-cropping and herbicide/pesticide/fungicide abuses of the land. Another farmer in Ohio shows off the beautiful, muddy, nutrient-rich soil he created with extensive cover cropping (juxtaposed with his neighbor's dry, disintegrating soil). Along with the farming techniques, Philpott mixes in federal policy ideas from reducing direct payments and crop subsidies that perpetuate the corn/soybean domination of industrial agriculture to a supply management system to coordinate planting decisions on a large scale. The solutions all tend to be highly unlikely yet practically the best we can do. All things considered, this is an eye-opening book filled with compelling case studies and issues, suffering a bit only because the topics of agronomy, climate change, and economic domination are too much to cram into one book. Nonetheless, I would highly recommend it.

(Vegan readers will be left incredibly unsatisfied with the lack of animosity towards the meat and dairy industries, particularly in regards to the author's suggestion of returning animals to the land rather than factory farms. This would be sustainable in an entirely different world with a drastically lower demand for meat, requiring a far lower number of animals. As it stands with our hedonistic appetites, there is no feasible way to turn loose millions of cattle to start openly grazing—we simply do not have enough land for this. And anyway, cattle grazing/production (along with crop farming, which is done to feed these calorie-hogging animals) are a leading cause of deforestation. While the author admits that a massive amount of corn and soybean crops go to feeding animals rather than humans—an extremely inefficient use of resources and one that implies we are significantly overproducing these crops—there is very little acknowledgement that the world's demand for meat is a demand of the privileged and an entirely unsustainable one at that. Considering that he also considers Impossible Burgers an ineffective solution because they contain soy is simply laughable—this farmer should know that cattle eat pounds and pounds of feed every single day, and whatever amount of soy is going into these burgers is probably far, far less. /incoherent rant)

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Focusing on drought-prone California and erosion-prone Iowa as examples, Philpott explores how our current agricultural practices are incurring a debt to nature that will lead to the collapse of our food systems. It's the perfect mix of first-person reporting and scientific facts, presented over an easily readable 200 pages or so in language anyone can understand.

[Zoe Jensen · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first few chapters were super interesting, but I wish the writing was more accessible to people who don't regularly read Mother Jones.

[Carrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super accessible and both informative and impassioned, this book picks up where the Omnivore's Dilemma left off. I was hesitant to read it, because I didn't want the guilt of not changing my ways. There isn't guilt so much as practicality and possibility in Philpott's final assessment and call for change: crop rotation and diversification, localities growing for their own regions, and aspects of the Green New Deal that are do-able without being politically charged: rather than subsidies for surplus, subsidies would be applied to conservation techniques: carbon retention in the soil for example. A national grain reserve would also address the surplus/shortage dichotomy. All well and good, but why change? The 2 major areas of food production: the Central Valley in CA, and Iowa in the nation's breadbasket are under threat from situations that human technology and regulation can't fix. The Central Valley provides about a quarter of the nation's fruits, vegetables and nuts. But projecting forward, the water supply is in danger due to diminished snow melt and depleting aquifers: "If relying on annual snowmelt is like living off your paycheck, relying on groundwater is akin to prematurely raiding your 401(k). Every draft you take is one you won't be able to replenish, at least not easily or cheaply." (26) Furthermore, pumping from the underground sources weakens the earth's surface and whatever is on top of it: roads, bridges, buildings, and even the impressive aqueduct system intended to alleviate the problem and makes the ground impervious to drainage. "So the state - and a substantial portion of our food system exists on a razor's edge between droughts and floods, its annual water resources decided by massive, increasingly fickle transfers of moisture from the South Pacific." (43) Meanwhile, Iowa whose 2 dominant crops of corn and soybeans underlie the production of meat for our country is challenged by erosion of the most fertile soil due to overplanting and lack of diversity. "...these fields struck me as the most impressive and brutal example I'd seen of humanity's will to reorder landscapes to its whims...The degree of industrial agriculture's triumph over the land defies belief." (74) Here is a vicious cycle of agribusiness giants providing the seed, the pesticides and the outrageously expensive equipment ($400, 000 for a combine) to churn out vast amounts of corn and soybeans with mostly the bottom dollar in mind. They also fund a powerful lobby in DC and contribute to campaigns to retain their dominant status. Philpott, as a small organic farmer in NC and a food politics writer has seen first-hand the squeeze small independent enterprises encounter when challenged by mega-production and resulting price undercuts. He summarizes: "If one theme unites the crises in this book,... it's simplification. Goaded on by farm interests, the federal and California governments poured billions into building out irrigation infrastructure...enabling a hyperefficient agriculture industry there, undercutting fresh produce growers in other regions. In the Midwest, an interlocking set of corporate oligopolies presides over a veritable empire of meat. The result is a reassuring simple geography of food -- and one quite profitable for the corporations that dominate it: California largely produces our fruits and vegetables, the Midwest our meat. But the ecologies that have supported these massively productive enterprises are unraveling. It's time to mix them up and spread them out." He urges readers to vote with their forks (a la Pollan) and their feet.

[Marissa Nicholas · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book made me cringe. Definitely covered the “looming collapse” synopsis as it pertains to California water crisis and Midwest soil health, but gave it three stars because I was hoping for more of “how we can prevent it.”

As someone who doesn’t work in ag, I enjoyed that Philpott’s writing style felt accessible and understandable.

My big takeaway is that we need to focus on soil health and water conservation. One way we can do this is by investing in small and mid size farmers who grow a diverse set of crops and incentivize big ag to introduce cover/ rotational crops.

It truly disgusts me how just a handful of corporations dominate our food system in every aspect. I had a slight idea of this before reading the book, but really came to understand their grip with this read.

[David · Rating 1 out of 5]

Missed opportunity. Might be appropriate for the uninformed. Others have done better work in detailing the problem. Weak on solutions. Tacit advert for some businesses is misplaced. Don't bother.

For solutions check out Wes Jackson, Wendell Berry,Gabe Brown and Ray Archuleta among others.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Important book about the environmental problems that stem from agribusiness. The focus is mainly on crop farming in California and the Midwest, and how shifting rain patterns resulting from climate change are making already-unsustainable monoculture farming even less viable. Basically there is more flooding in some places, more drought in others and that is contributing to soil degradation in conjunction with increased erosion and soil pollution. It's all just cyclical. For me, this book might have been more easily digested as a long form article, but I think that's just because I personally am not all that interested in the details on this particular subject. But still a good read.

[Ivy Wappler · Rating 5 out of 5]

please! read this book before it’s too late
excellent job of condensing a lot of complicated dynamics into something extremely readable and accessible. extremely illuminating and alarming.

[K. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an outstanding, 5 star book that ought to be read by, well, virtually any American that eats food.

This book argues that “...the United States has two dominant food-producing regions – California's Central Valley and the former prairielands of the
Midwest – and both are in a state of palpable and accelerating ecological
decline…to grow our food, I argue in this book, the agribusiness interests that dominate the Central Valley and the Corn Belt are also
actively consuming the ecological foundations that support agriculture itself.”

I had a few main takeaways here.

First- I believe one of the great challenges ahead for humankind, and one in which we might not succeed, is to recognize that the disruption of natural systems can have terrible consequences and must not be done thoughtlessly. I don't know if we will be able to overcome the tendency for Christianity to view nature as something to be mastered that was given to us by God for our use. Or able to overcome the fact that choices which may be good for the individual are often damaging to the society at large when practiced by every individual, because of the very human (and sometimes correct) impulse to say “screw you, you think you know what's better for me than I do, you leaders won't tell me what to do.”

This book also reinforces my fear that the Trump's administration's drive to drastically shrink the federal government and deregulate industry will be a horror show. If the likes of the Wonderful Company and Monsanto are allowed to continue ravaging the earth at the expense of ordinary people, of course they will. We've seen it over and over through history and there's no point in being unrealistic about the moral depths industry will sink to in the pursuit of profit. So now we must accept that the Trump administration's goal is to enrich the already wealthy, even if it poisons our water, our land and our very bodies. And we'll have to start figuring out alternative ways to protect our health by sharing safety information about products and companies in volunteer-run activist networks, and ways to keep our diets well rounded yet affordable with food that will have to be sourced locally to be trusted. Just like the FDA used to do for us with our tax dollars! But now chaotic, less complete, and adding to the list of daily chores every adult already has. Isn't that grand?

For an example of how devious these companies can be- when searching for info about the Wonderful Company, I came across this horrible little ad/PR campaign in People magazine, which claims they're a “Company That Cares” because they give a few college scholarships. They also steal water, one of the basic essentials of human life, but who cares right?!

Next- one chapter also covers the public controversy over GMOs. While this book has made obvious to me several issues with GMOs- including environmental degradation and the enrichment of malignant agricultural corporations- personally I remember this debate hinging on perceptions of GMOs being bad to eat, and not even in the sense of “you shouldn't eat so much corn syrup, you'll get fat” but “because those foods were genetically modified, it will somehow modify your DNA in a meaningful and bad way”. Which is akin to misunderstandings about mRNA vaccines. Now I guess I could be proven wrong and GMO foods may end up being bad for you in a novel way, but I suspect they're dangerous more because they're currently used to produce crops that make us overweight and unhealthy, and the farming monocultures they produce are ecologically not sustainable for much longer.

Next- at the beginning of the first chapter, an organic melon farmer in the San Joaquin Valley attributes increased labor costs to policies commonly associated with both Republicans (deportations of illegal immigrants) and Democrats (mandated overtime pay for agricultural workers and minimum wage increased to $15/hr).

It's fascinating because this farmer basically admits the whole industry is only sustainable with labor costs kept artificially low by illegal immigration and loopholes that allow for labor abuses. So- what is the answer? Is it possible that organic melons, in a world where labor is done by Americans and paid fairly, would unfortunately have to cost $15-20 each? Is it possible that those of us who don't live near a melon growing area, would simply have to forsake eating melons for the sake of the environment and the rights of our fellow workers?

Of course, this book is mainly about the environmental sustainability of our farming practices, not the economic sustainability of an industry that relies on labor exploitation to deliver goods at prices affordable to consumers. But it's interesting that agriculture is plagued by both of these un-sustainabilities. And it's interesting that this farmer is caught between continuing to rely on melons (human labor intensive, but take half the water that almonds do) or transitioning to almonds (mostly machine labor, but double the water)- or, caught between labor exploitation and environmental exploitation.

(I should note that I do not mean to single this farmer out as a bad person or employer- he sounds like a shrewd hardworking person. This book makes it quite clear that many people trying to make rational decisions for their own lives in the short term, end up contributing to a damaging overall pattern in the long run.)

My last big takeaway is that government policy seems specifically designed to keep farmers barely hanging on but never fully failing, so the fortunes of a few dozens of large corporations can continue to amass. Often when farmers need bailouts you hear it justified as, they grow our food and they are so necessary that not bailing them out would be committing an injury to ourselves as eaters. But the current system is not the only way we could be fed. Are these really bailouts for farmers and thus eaters, or for the mega corporations that supply them and buy their products?

Below is a very detailed summary, mostly for my own notes:

Introduction:

“What drives this creeping disaster is the rise of a virtual oligarchy of companies that capture most of the profit generated by the trillion-dollar-a-year food economy. Three massive, globe-spanning companies – Bayer-
Monsanto, Corteva, and Syngenta – sell the great bulk of the seeds and pesticides available to U.S. farmers. A handful of others – Tyson Foods, Cargill, IBS, and Smithfield Foods – slaughter and pack the majority of meat we eat. The market for trading corn and soybeans largely belongs to Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland. In California, a single firm – the privately held Wonderful Company – dominates the water-sucking almond,
pistachio, pomegranate, and mandarin-orange markets…these behemoths profit by squeezing farmers and offloading the costs of the ecological degradation they cause into communities and taxpayers.”

Chapter 1-

California produces ⅓ of the country's vegetables and ⅔ of its fruits and nuts.

Before the gold rush of the 19th century and the subsequent increase in agricultural production, the Central Valley was dominated by a robust and uncontrolled system of rivers, lakes, and wetlands. Today, the three large rivers in the area range from 40% to nearly 100% diverted into irrigation networks.

Farmland in the Central Valley receives relatively little rainfall every year, and relies instead on water from underground aquifers and annual snowmelt from the mountains. But climate change is reducing annual snowfall, and the subsequent increased use of water pumped from wells is threatening to dry up aquifers. It also causes “subsidence,” where the ground sinks- and in some areas of the Central Valley, the ground has been sinking by over 2 feet a year. This shifting terrain causes damage to the dams and canals, leading to a 20% increase in leaks. And then less water from the irrigation system means more use of groundwater…ad nauseum. One study estimated that given current global warming trends, by the end of the 21st century, snowpack will be 79% less than in the mid 20th century.


Chapter 2-

So in theory, would addressing global warming solve the problem of water in the Central Valley? Probably not, because climatologists have found that the area now called California has gone through long cycles of drought followed by extremely wet periods.

Philpott describes the Great Flood of 1862, which I'm surprised I'd never heard of before. It created a lake of the Central Valley, “rivaling Lake Superior in size” which is 20 million acres or 31k sq mi, and up to 15 feet deep in some places. It killed thousands of people and destroyed ⅓ of all property in the state.

Researchers have found that the same climate phenomena that cause periodic droughts, cause “megafloods” about every 200 years in this area. A major project to model the possible effects of a flood in 2011 estimated $725 billion in damage (compared to Katrina's $166) and thousands of acres covered in 20-30 feet of water. This study didn't estimate a death toll, but the flood of 1862 killed about 4000 when the population of the Central Valley was very low (about 500K in all of CA at the time.) Now there are 7.2 million people living in this valley.

Chapter 3-

The rapidly expanding nut industry in California is dominated by one enormous firm, the “Wonderful Company” (how freaking creepy is that?! Lol) which owns and farms 50k acres of nuts in CA, and processes an astonishing 80% of pistachios grown there. Through a legal though ethically monstrous agreement, the Resnick family who owns Wonderful dominates use of the Kern Water Bank, ensuring their nut farms get priority use over residential areas. So as usual on this dumb earth, most of the bounty of the nut industry flows to a handful of huge companies, not to the people who make their homes there and work the farms.

The high entry costs and enormous profitability of the nut industry have led to its domination by very wealthy players, and encouraged the increased financialization of the agriculture industry. The wealthy now invest in farmland as an asset, and though (as of 2025) 21 states have some restrictions on this practice, California isn't among them. In 2018, a subsidiary of Prudential Financial argued that although only 3% of farmland was currently owned by financial interests, the increased mechanization of agriculture and the aging of the current generation of farmers are an opportunity to expand. This trend threatens to separate the profits of farming even further from the local people who do the labor and the local economies that ought to be benefiting.

Chapter 4-

The Corn Belt of the upper Midwest grows 90% of America's corn and 80% of its soybeans. And in total, US farmers grow 35% of the world's corn and 34% of its soybeans. But the transformation of biodiverse prairieland into monocultural (or di-cultural?) farmland has caused enormous soil erosion, and threatens to be a victim of its own unbridled success.

This chapter has a lot of interesting and valuable information on the dilemmas farmers face and why it's often an unprofitable enterprise. If an industry is dominated by only a few players, such as computer chips where just three firms rule, low prices for a product can be increased by reducing supply. But farmers, with thousands of competitors, have no way to coordinate producing less crops. So when prices of a foodstuff are low, each farmer thinks individualistically and plants more, so he can recoup the loss inflicted by lower prices by selling more product. But more product means the price drops even more.

Also, technological improvements mean that productivity of farmland has increased, and the amount produced is greatly in excess of what Americans can eat. So corn and soybean farmers have turned to international exports, gasoline additives, and livestock feed as receptacles for this excess.

Overall, farming alternates between a few good years and a few bad years, and its long run profitability is zero. Hence, $146 billion in government subsidies for corn and soybean farmers between 1995-2017.

Farmers aren't profiting much from this system, so who is? Yep, you guessed it!- huge corporations who peddle ecologically damaging technology. And the agriculture industry, despite including tens of thousands of competing farms, has very little competition in the upper echelons of companies that buy crops from and sell technology to farmers.

There are a few equipment manufacturers (John Deere, CNH Industrial and AGCO), fertilizer manufacturers (Cargill and Mosaic), seeds/pesticides (Corteva which is Dow+Dupont, Syngenta, and Bayer which owns Monsanto), grain buyers (ADM, Bunge, Cargill, and Dreyfus) and meatpackers (Cargill, JBS, Tyson, National Beef, Smithfield, Sanderson, and Perdue).

In meatpacking, the American market has reached a saturation point, so firms have aggressively expanded in developing overseas markets- a new market for meat, and thus a new source of demand for corn and soybeans. But this trade doesn't benefit anyone but the corporations who control it- it's inhumane to the animals, unprofitable for the farmers, bad for human diets, terrible conditions for the meat packing employees, and toxic to the soil and streams that animal waste contaminates.

Chapter 5-

Monsanto was the first and main corporation to commercialize genetically modified crops. Initially a chemical company, they produced the weed killer Roundup, and later profited immensely from creating “Roundup Ready” (that is, resistant) crops- which allowed farmers to spray herbicides once the crops were already growing. They were able to engineer these crops after discovering a genetic mutation in wild plants growing outside the factory where Roundup was produced, where chemical runoff had prompted the evolution of weeds resistant to Roundup.

Of course this begs the question- won't the weeds growing in Corn Belt fields also eventually become resistant to Roundup? They would, but Monsanto kept the info about the wild plants gaining resistance under wraps, and assured farmers that such was impossible. Once the inevitable began to happen, farmers were forced to revert to older herbicides- which Monsanto also conveniently sold- and, whoopsie, here come weeds with multiple immunities. But Monsanto has the solution again- crops resistant to multiple herbicides! And so on. It seems unlikely this chain will end before either the soil of the Corn Belt is destroyed, or more sustainable farming practices become popular.

Chapter 6-

Before the advent of industrial agriculture in the Corn Belt, during spring rains, the deep roots of prairieland plants would hold soil in place and draw a reserve source of water into the soil.

Now, spring rains hit bare earth, and every year Iowa farmland erodes and loses an average of 8.4 tons of soil per acre- when the natural replenishment is estimated at 0.5 tons of soil per acre. And as climate change intensifies the amount of rainfall the Midwest receives, soil loss also escalates.

Without the lush soil that has built up over centuries, it is unlikely this land will remain fertile and suitable for farming for much longer.

This water-and-soil runoff also contains livestock manure, pesticides, and fertilizers. As this chemical soup enters waterways, huge algae blooms form which kill marine life and make water unsafe for people to drink. This effect happens all the way down the Mississippi River into the Gulf of Mexico, where algae creates an annual “dead zone” that damages the fishing and shrimping industries there- so that a “high-quality source of low cost protein is being sacrificed so that a source of low-quality, high-input subsidized protein can blanket the Upper Midwest.”

Chapter 7-

This chapter covers some alternative methods of farming in the Corn Belt that represent a more sustainable way forward.

By rotating crops, farmers could both improve the nitrogen content of the soil, create a natural buffer against soil erosion by planting a winter “cover crop” like rye, and even increase profits by selling that cover crop. This method also reduces the need for pesticides by preventing weeds from taking root, and increases the quality of soil by encouraging water retention and a higher proportion of organic material (like earthworms and microbes).

By organizing farms around a mix of livestock and diverse crop growing, with each component in proportion, farmers could produce a greater variety of the food needed locally and reduce the damaging environmental effects of monoculture.

However, adoption of these methods has been limited so far. Crop insurance and government bailouts buffer losses so there is no incentive to change, and using cover crops takes more labor and more planning than using chemicals.

Chapter 8-

So are there other fertile areas that we can “switch” to farming in, while keeping the same environmentally damaging practices? No, because other areas face their own ecological problems.

The Salinas Valley relies entirely on increasingly depleted aquifers for water, and the Imperial Valley fights for water from the Colorado River as ever greater Southwestern populations increase residential demand. Mexico and Chile, two of the main sources of vegetable and fruit imports to the United States, are also facing increasing water supply issues.

The author argues that by producing the vast majority of fruit/veg in California, and corn/ soybeans in the Midwest, we have oversimplified our agricultural system. He suggests that California cut back on production of fruit/veg/nuts and sell what it does produce to the growing markets in the Southwest. He suggests that meat production in the Midwest shift back to a pasture based system, and that the Corn Belt grow a much greater proportion of the fruit/veg sold in Midwestern metropolitan markets like Chicago, Detroit, and Minneapolis.

But farmers who desire to change the current system face long odds, for any of these reforms would eat into the profits of the huge corporations that currently exploit farmers and eaters. Through campaign donations, lobbying, and PR campaigns, companies like Monsanto vigorously defend the current arrangement. And government policy, through subsidies and bailouts, also mitigates against change.

The hopeful note struck by the author in the last chapter unfortunately seems naive now. In October 2025 the Green New Deal is nothing but a sentimental “what-could-have-been” memory.

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The really scared me. I live in Iowa so I have watched the change in farms to bigger and bigger. There use to be a blend of crops and livestock; no more. The damage to water and soil can be seen from many highways. The other region discussed is California and I learned a lot about that agricultural center. I suggest this as a read if you have concerns about agriculture. You can learn about the concentration in the industry and it’s impacts. Well worth the effort to read even though limited to just to centers of production.

[Jeff Anders · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very well balanced but critical look at modern systemic issues in agriculture. I appreciated the detailed focus on water, and explaining the way that smart producers made a series of well-intentioned decisions that led to new natural resource challenges.

[Eduardo Santiago · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kind of like Jared Diamond's Collapse except written in present tense instead of past: water scarcity and quality; cataclysmic droughts then floods; labor availability and cost; megacorporations who (spoiler alert!) might not necessarily have humankind's long-term interests in mind; monoculture, toxic runoffs; political rentseeking; the destructive mining of our soil, our aquifers, our people, our future. What if we could see collapse coming and do something to prevent it?

None of the above is new information to even the most minimally informed reader; in fact you've probably already skipped on to reading about some other book, Happy Fluffy Bunnies or Ostriches Don't Stick Their Heads In The Sand But Humans Do. If you're still here, maybe you're wondering why you should read this book, and all I can say is: it will make you much, much better informed about the specifics of the problem, and that in turn can make you a better voter and advocate — especially if you live in Iowa or California, but regardless, every food choice we make matters.

In this unexpectedly enjoyable book Philpott offers potential solutions, or at least ways to give us breathing space. They're simple but not easy: farmers have to resist pressure from Big Ag, accept a little short-term inefficiency for the sake of long-term sustainability; large megafarms need to give way to smaller, more diversified midsize ones; and consumers have to eat less meat and maybe pay a little more for healthy food. I really want to write something snarky here, but I won't, choosing instead to believe that it's possible. It'll take time and determination, but the alternative is not worth contemplating.

[Jason Flatt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perilous Bounty is an excellent guide to the dangers the United States’ agricultural hubs, primarily in California and Iowa face at the hands of climate change, poor policy and planning, and corporate oligopolies. The book is well broken down into chapters that dissect the history, current events, and future of a number of specific perils facing our food system, including clean water shortages, soil quality and erosion, and the corporate/political mechanisms that lock monocropping and pesticide abuse in place. Philpott expertly breaks down each topic in layman’s terms with the support of myriad expertise and research. This results in a trove of statistics, quotes, anecdotes, and other data to support the eventual proposals suggested. Unlike many books of its kind, Perilous Bounty spends a reasonably proportionate time discussing answers as it does discussing problems, which is abundantly welcome in general, but especially given the dire circumstances and short timeline for course correction illustrated here. Overall, an excellent resource for explaining the specific perils of the U.S. food growing system, why those perils came to be, and what can be done to prevent calamity in the near and more distant future.

[Jeffrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good book. Better than I expected. Clean concise prose and a clear message. He focuses on the fruit, vegetable and nut production in California's Central Valley and the corn and soybean production in Iowa. He makes a convincing argument that water is a declining resource in California and the loss of topsoil is alarming in Iowa. I was vaguely aware of these challenges but he really enhanced my understanding. Very valuable read.
3/21/23 I raised my rating to 5 stars. I have quoted this book many times since I read it. It was the first place I read about 'atmospheric river'. The book was quite precient about California and for that I think the author deserves 5 stars. His prescience means I will track his future writings.

[James Kenney · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book. It’s fascinating, depressing, and deeply alarming.

It slightly overlaps with Montgomery’s ‘Growing a Revolution’ with no till farming and cover crops...but it expertly draws attention to a looming, malignant crisis in modern agriculture, including water crises (esp in California), water quality and algae blooms in the Midwest, the use and misuse of GMOs, pesticides, and herbicides, and Big Ag’s manipulation of our government to pull enormous profits out of the ground while farmers, workers, and local communities suffer.

There are ticking time bombs being planted as we speak. Knowing is only half the battle - now we need to do something about it.

[Pamela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Provides a lot of helpful detail and with great clarity. Metrics and stats were meaningfully presented without feeling like a data dump. Interesting solutions were offered, but I remain skeptical that they can be implemented unless corporations are held financially responsible for the ecological and societal destruction caused by the prevailing business model. Consumer demand for sustainability won’t be enough. Regulation might help, but lobbyists’ deep pockets will prevent any change to the status quo until a food crisis erases the illusion of abundance.

[Keith Wheeles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well-woven look at the two geographic areas with concentrated food supply output/risk in America, the midwest (soy/corn/meat) and the California Central Valley (fresh fruits and vegetables). Examines the economics, environmental impact and sustainability of our dependence on these potential points of failure. The author's travel and interviews lend a ground level human perspective that makes it a pleasure to read.

[Doug · Rating 5 out of 5]

I only wish the every human on earth would read this book and understand the unsustainable implications of our current industrial agriculture nightmare.

[seo · Rating 4 out of 5]

in "perilous bounty," tom philpott primarily focuses on the ecological degradation caused by agriculture in california and the midwest. more specifically, he touches upon california's water crisis in terms of decreasing snowmelt and depleted aquifers, soil erosion in the midwest, toxic algal blooms caused by fertilizer runoff, and the regional shifts in climate caused by global warming. altogether, i would categorize this as an environmental science book rather than a book that focuses on food.

overall, i appreciated the emphasis on broader, systemic solutions rather than individualistic ones, and he specifically writes, "we have reached the limits of 'market-as-movement' to transform the food system... well-off consumers should vote with their forks three times a day, but the pace of positive change they create has been no match for big food's massive inertia and the rapid advance of climate change." he's entirely correct in that, and it's refreshing to see this in his writing. he suggests various solutions like the use of cover crops in the midwest, scaling back agriculture to meet california's current water supply, shifting federal policy and government subsidies away from monocultures of corn/soybeans and towards alternative options, and encouraging agriculture in other regions of the US to support local and regional food chains. because i'm not an expert in agriculture, i have no idea if these solutions are feasible, but to me, his reasoning seemed sound enough.

i also appreciated his explanation of the science behind the environmental phenomenon occurring. for every piece of jargon he used, he offered a working definition, and i felt like he did his best to explain scientific concepts to a general audience. there are a few places here and there where i wondered if this would be understandable to a layman (ex: the explanation of california's wet / dry phases and the semipermanent pressure systems between the poles and subtropic regions, i could see someone not fully understanding the el nino effect in california there). however, it's pretty decent compared to other nonfiction books out there. good scientific communication is hard!

in terms of improvements, i did think that the midwest section was less organized compared to the previous chapters on california. it's not going to hinder your understanding of the concepts imo but it could have been organized to flow better from topic to topic. i also wish that there was a touch more discussion on the social ramifications of big agriculture in the united states. for example, he briefly touches on the labor required for melon farming in the california section, and he mentions the impact of immigration and deportation policies as well as the rise of minimum wage. however, it's a brief sentence or two and then he barrels onward to focus on water consumption of nut farming. i understand that this is a book primarily focused on ecological degradation, but i wished that there was just a little more discussion on the people impacted and involved in big agriculture as well. i'd rather have that than the lengthy discussion on the author's experience with interviewing someone from monsanto.

altogether, it's worth the read, and i enjoyed the book - would recommend!

[Myles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two summers ago visiting the beautiful island of Santorini I noted with extreme disgust that the island’s two million visitors each year drank bottled water that was exclusively imported. The island had virtually no fresh drinking water. Plastic bottles, plastic that was endangering sea life and creeping into our food, were everywhere.

In Perilous Bounty I learned that farming families in parts of Central California won’t drink the water from their own taps because it comes from wells dug so deep into the ancient aquifers that it increasingly comes mixed with arsenic from the earth’s core.

So these largely poor people buy water in plastic bottles, much like tourists in the Aegean Sea. To drink. Even to wash their children.

This story is largely about weakening supplies of fresh water for agriculture in California and the decline of soil in Iowa due to agribusiness.

In California we see the pressure on agribusiness coming from the decline in the snowpacks of the Sierra Madre mountains, the over-use of subterranean aquifers, but also from the diversion of the Colorado River and the snowpacks of the Rocky Mountains.

Equally alarming is the history of massive rainstorms which historically hit the area once every 100 years or so but will likely occur more frequently as global warming evaporates more Pacific Ocean waters more quickly.

If California public officials have plans to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people in the Central Valley on short notice, it seems unlikely they have plans to quickly evacuate millions of beef cattle, dairy cows, and hogs from the same area. The prospect of millions of floating dead farm animals is nauseating in the extreme.

The decline of Prairie soil is equally worrisome and a long term threat to corn and soybean growers. As is the leaching of poisonous insecticides and fertilizers into the Mississippi and Lake Erie water basins where it results in algae blooms, dead fish, and list livelihoods.

Much if this is not not new journalism.

Some of things that occurred to me before include:

- Iowa corn and soybean farming hasn’t been profitable on average for the past 30 years; profitable for the seed, insecticide, fertilizer and farm machinery companies, but not for the farmers themselves.

- Large parts of Central California are sinking by about 10” per year as the aquifers empty out.

- the scale at which Wall Street (and Toronto’s Bay Street) shifted money out of money-losing sub-prime investments and into pistachio, almond, and grape-growing agricultural lands, bidding up the prices of such land

- in the late 1800’s John Rockefeller eschewed buying oil wells and instead controlled the distribution and processing system. That game plan is pretty much in evidence in today’s agribusiness. Consolidation of meat packers, distributors, petro-chemical giants and commodity traders seems to have taken the fun out of farming.

The author of this book sees some daylight in all the gloom, but I found it misplaced given the financial stakes involved and the speed at which we have degraded the environment.

I also found it supremely ironic given the political narrative in the US about the cultural divide between Middle America and the coastal cities.

1) Monoculture isn’t just an Iowa problem. It is poisoning the heartland and the Gulf Coast equally.

2) California’s power brokers aren’t in Hollywood or Berkeley. They wear flannel shirts and cowboy hats and say “Yahoo!!” with feeling.

3) The heartland of America is as far from free enterprise as its ever been and its hard to imagine things loosening up. The farmers of Iowa are completed tied up by oligopolies. In this economy, there really is no freedom of choice or hope of innovation on any scale that can disrupt the status quo. Likewise farmers in California will see water regulations and labour laws that will dictate their businesses for the forseeable future. I see this in my own sector, I see it in many others as well.

Big data. Consolidation. Increased automation and artificial intelligence. These will guide agribusiness.

[Blaze Currie · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is important to read books and articles from time to time that we expect to disagree with. I read “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” knowing that as a farm kid who still works in agriculture, there would be statements I would consider “flawed” and arguments that oversimplified the realities of a working farm and complex food system. But I also knew that an outsiders perspective on my family’s livelihood could offer thought provoking challenges and ways of seeing my world from a different angle. Pollan did that with Omnivore’s Dilemma, and now Tom Philpott has with this book.

A lot of his analysis rang true to what I know about the industry - especially those connected to the corn belt. His list of facts about industry conglomerates was not incorrect. While we can all make different value judgements and narratives around these facts, one cannot dismiss this book as being bogus and not based on facts. I think his narrative exaggerates how alarmed we should be by these facts, but that’s just my opinion. While Philpott does use factual evidence throughout this book, he does cherry-pick the facts he uses. For example, he discusses crop rotation throughout the book but never lets the reader know the rationale of corn / soybean rotation and why most farmers use this rotation practice.

I do think Philpott falls short on offering solutions to the problems he identified in the book. Part of this is because he does a good job explaining how complex our food system is; therefore, he knows he cannot toss out cheap solutions. Some of the technical approaches he outlines, like cover-cropping, are sensible, but he places much of his emphasis not on market pressure, technological advancement, or state and local governments. Instead, he places this “perilous bounty” in the hands of congress and the Green New Deal to resolve. Good luck with that approach!

I do think all those in the American food and agriculture industry, especially those connected to row crop production, should give this a read. There are some alarming facts about soil erosion and climate change that can’t be ignored. Some changes to our food production system will not be easy, but they may become necessary.

[Michael Mulberry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tom Philpott has always connected the dots for me. And this could not be a more timely book charting our country's (and world's) food supply. While Philpott has charted the incredible floods that will eventually hit California, his alternate prediction of more extreme droughts is presently doing the predicted damage.

He also points to the damage being done to the soil in the Midwest. While I am a resident of the Midwest, I recognize why most of Philpott's analysis lands in California.

Tom Philpott does an excellent job of sharing these broad narratives on the march to presently devastating our food systems.

What I found missing, however, was the piece by piece analysis he does with the articles he has historically written for Grist or Mother Jones. That may be unfair to compare his excellent writing in these articles with his broad analysis in his book. Because I don't know too many people who are his equal in his articles, I think he should be actively providing us with books that are a compendium of all these articles. They are required reading. I recommend this book for anyone who needs a broad introduction to the "about-face" we need to make in our food systems and structures.

[Fred Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an up to date view of some of the challenges today in industrial agriculture. It focuses on California and Iowa but these problems are true in many parts of the country. You wouldn't expect someone who writes for Mother Jones to be completely impartial. He's not really but his view is pretty realistic. These are definitely real problems and challenges and they have been made worse by the way the agriculture system works with just a few gigantic players. I have seen lots of small farms be consolidated into bigger operations.

I would like to have seen the author spend more time on alternative solutions. He did talk about some good ones like cover crops in the Midwest. But there are also other things he could have spent more time on and the challenges that they face in scaling. Things like equipment and markets for alternative crops. My experience is that most farmers want to be sustainable but in order to be sustainable in the future, they have to be sustainable now and stay in business.

It’s also a good view of the problems of the supply chain we saw during Covid. Definitely worth reading. Will use in my science and environment survey course.

[Elgin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wavered between two and three stars on this one; also thought about classifying it as science (maybe science based?) I wanted to like this book more than I did, but over half of it pretty much repeated stuff that I had read in the Omnivore's Delemna (though Philpott did include information he had gathered up through 2019, mostly through interviews with farmers, academics, and industrty repreesentatives.)

What did I learn? Well the section on the California floods of the 186os was interesting, especially given the present (Jan. 2023) atmospheric river driven storms going on in California. His suggestions to mitigate a coming crisis in food production were certainly reasonable (though also old news.) But can these suggestion be implimented in time given the ag intustry's hold on farmesr and congress?
I doubt it...money and Republicans well see that needed changes don't get traction. Philpott's best advice is to "vote with your fork."

[Patrick Pilz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Michael Pollan, Marion Nestle,....there are quite a few people that critique our food supply. Tom Philpott is one of them. His opinions though reason with one. They deal with the issues created by mon0-cultures, consequences of global warming, financial interests and the dire situation of our water levels. Instead of condemning a particular industry, he shows ways on how we can still keep eating meats, nut and other foods, but change the way we grow them.

The book is easy to read and to comprehend. It is somewhat short, with essentially 200 pages net after deduction of all the exhibits at the end. Still, it would be in the running for my conference give away, if a physical would take place.

Interesting, readable, comprehensible and enjoyable. Just not a 5-star book.

[Paul Santamore · Rating 3 out of 5]

Philpott brings much experience and grit to the writing of this book. In places he can be a bit repot it is, but I think it is because he really wants the reader to understand the basics of the major problems our agricultural system is facing. I cannot fault him there.

This book fits into a pantheon of excellent books on our nation’s food system and the troubles that it faces now and will continue to face moving forward. Very informative from the beginning, it focuses solely on two major hubs for agricultural work in the United States, which is helpful in keeping the scope of the book manageable.

[Irene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everyone who lives in the U.S. needs to read this book.

4 stars because the editing was not as tight or polished as I would have liked (there is a lot of redundant phrasing, and the first 1/3 or so of the book is much more compelling than the rest, which I think could be improved with a better editor. There also some inconsistency, such as "as I'm writing this in January 2020" but referencing things that happened in 2021, which were presumably added in the 2022 update but not integrated as well as they could have been). But the content in this book, if all true, is terrifyingly eye-opening and informative.

*2022 Around the Year Reading Challenge*
Prompt #15: A book without a person on the cover

[Zulugoat · Rating 3 out of 5]

average book on an important topic

too political for my taste, while I am no fan of Trump, had I known that AOC would make a guest appearance, I would never have touched this

I believe the way the arguments are presented as a whole is neither strong nor objective enough to change anyone's view across the aisle

someone should do a serious editing job on the numbers quoted because some really do not jive (sometimes just a paragraph away), most likely because of typos, but there are enough in there to start affecting the book's credibility

[Barb · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an eye-opening book about the state of our climate, soil, and water based on farming practices. The information shared is alarming, but the book provides clear solutions about how to maintain excellent top soil and water. Imagine the pig shit Iowa produces. If you read this book, you will understand what everyone should be concerned about when it comes to agricultural practices. I was frightened by so much of the information and appalled to discover how much agribusinesses such as Monsanto manipulate the market, etc. Truly a must read book, but is also available as an audiobook.