Sonja Trom Eayrs, author of Dodge County, Incorporated: Big Ag and the Undoing of Rural America
Emilie Buchwald Award for Minnesota Nonfiction Category, sponsored by Annette and John Whaley
Each week leading up to the 37th annual Minnesota Book Awards, we are featuring exclusive interviews with our finalists. You can also watch the authors in conversation with their fellow category finalists here.
What inspired you to write this book – or inspired you while writing it?
My family has been on the front lines for decades fighting corporate agriculture and the strategic, methodical and intentional corporate takeover of rural America-the place many of still call “home.” With my elderly father home alone on the farm and my elderly mother in the nursing home, I felt a deep sense of purpose and responsibility, not only to help my parents, but to also share my family’s story. I started interviewing my father about two years prior to his death, as I felt compelled to capture his story and his perspective regarding the fundamental change that has occurred in rural America during the course of his 90-year lifetime on the farm. As I continued to write the story, the book started to write itself as the events, the characters, the setting and other details all fell into place. As the story unfolded, I realized that I was not only fighting for my family to stay on the land, but for all farm families to stay on the land.
What is one detail you wanted to include in this book, but couldn’t find a place for?
During the course of my 36-year career as a family law attorney, I have witnessed domestic violence and have received considerable training in power and control dynamics. The power and control wheel, which was created by domestic violence professionals, describes the power and control dynamics that are frequently used in unhealthy marriages by one party to control the other party, e.g. using intimidation, using emotional abuse, using isolation, using privilege, using economic abuse, using coercion and threats, and other tactics. I realized that many of the same tactics have been used by the multinational corporations over the past several decades to put industry giants in a power position to the detriment of neighboring farm families who have been on the land for decades. Like a bad marriage, there is a power imbalance in rural America.
Tell us about someone (whose name isn’t on the cover!) who proved instrumental to the creation of this book.
My husband played an instrumental role in the creation of this book. He willingly accompanied me to public hearings at local town halls, county court houses, and the Minnesota Legislature; he frequently testified at hearings (including one hearing where he testified that he cleaned out a lot of manure during his youth and proclaimed publicly that chicken manure was the worst!); he patiently listened to draft excerpts from the book so long as I did not disrupt his beloved Minnesota Vikings; and he provided constant encouragement and a little humor along the way.
Please tell us something about yourself that is not widely known. (It doesn’t have to be about the book in question – or even about your writing at all!)
As a family law attorney, I frequently advise my clients who are going through a painful divorce to keep a journal as it’s often part of the healing process. I decided to listen to my own advice and started writing the book. It was a very painful book to write, and yet, the process allowed me to heal. I heard a recent quote from Meryl Streep that sums up the book, “Take your broken heart – make it into art.”
Share your thoughts about the role and value of libraries.
Libraries, though frequently quiet and unassuming, allow for freedom of expression. Never take the importance of libraries for granted.
Sonja Trom Eayrs is a farmer’s daughter, rural advocate, and attorney. She is involved in several rural advocacy organizations, including the Socially Responsible Agriculture Project, Farm Action, Land Stewardship Project, and Dodge County Concerned Citizens, and serves as the business manager for the Trom family farm in Dodge County, Minnesota.