Review of Titans of Industrial Agriculture: How a Few Giant Corporations Came to Dominate the Farm Sector and Why it Matters

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v13i2.812

Keywords:

Industrial agriculture, corporate consolidation, megamergers, capitalism, global agrifood system

Abstract

In Titans of Industrial Agriculture, Jennifer Clapp offers a comprehensive account of the history and ongoing transformation of corporate consolidation across the agricultural machinery, fertilizer, seed, and pesticide sectors. Drawing on extensive archival research, Clapp argues that agricultural titans arose from the interaction of market, technological, and policy forces that enabled and reinforced corporate dominance over time. From this dominance, firms shape and stymie innovation, influence policy, and entrench the industrial model in the global agrifood system, with significant social and ecological consequences. Titans is an extraordinary documentation of corporate power. However, the book's focus on market dynamics at times glosses over a more structural critique of capitalism. In centering the names and logics of megamergers, Clapp risks eliding the intimate details of how and why marginalized bodies and land are required to animate industrial agriculture. Among the book's greatest strengths are its exceptionally detailed evidence and its readability, making it a valuable resource for both scholars and classroom teaching.

Author Biography

Mindy Price, Macalester College

is a political ecologist and human geographer whose research examines the intersections of critical food andagrarian studies, Indigenous environmental studies, and polar geography. Her current project examines how the Northwest Territories,Canada, has emerged as both an imaginative and material frontier for agriculture, and how rural and Indigenous communities negotiate their relationships with land and the state amid shifting climatic and agrarian conditions. Her research and teaching advance food justice through a focus on land sovereignty, gender equity, and ecologically sustainable practices, and she collaborates closely with communities and practitioners in community-engaged ethnographic and archival research.

Two zebras standing tip to tail in the foreground with a background of green grasses and blue sky.

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Published

2026-08-27

How to Cite

Price, M. (2026). Review of Titans of Industrial Agriculture: How a Few Giant Corporations Came to Dominate the Farm Sector and Why it Matters. Canadian Food Studies La Revue Canadienne Des études Sur l’alimentation, 13(2), 150–152. https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v13i2.812

Issue

Vol. 13 No. 2 (2026): Finding Allies

Section

Book/Art/Event Reviews

License

Copyright (c) 2026 Mindy Price

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