In the 1990s, a new agriculture production model called concentrated animal feeding operations began to take hold, first in poultry and then in hogs and dairy. This model not only treated workers and animals as commodities in a brutal industry of slaughter and supply chain economics, but it also wreaked havoc on rural economies and the environment. Meatpacker conglomerates like Smithfield, Tyson and JBS established powerful forms of corporate control that turned farmers into contract growers, or modern-day serfs.
Today, many politicians and agriculture industry organizations continue to support this model of industrial farming that allows corporations to consolidate and wield their power over farmers to the detriment of rural communities and the environment.
Yet the tragic story of today’s food system is far from inevitable. Join Barn Raiser and Farm Action on Tuesday, March 4, to hear Sonja Eayrs, author of Dodge County, Inc., and Joe Maxwell, co-founder of Farm Action, discuss how farmers and rural communities across the country can fight corporate power, not only for the sake of land, labor and water, but for democracy itself.
