When communities collide: Corporate concentration of agriculture, associated health threats and opportunities for positive transformation

This presentation will focus on communities around industrial farms, including some of the farmers themselves. Rural communities around industrial farm operations, especially industrial food animal production facilities, face health threats including air and water pollution, exposure to pesticides, pathogens (especially antibiotic resistant bacteria), and malodor, as well as mental and social health threats. Too often family farmers suffer a loss of autonomy when contracting with or selling to large corporations. Mid-sized farms struggle to compete with large industrial operations that are increasingly consolidating. Minority farmers are only recently receiving attention from the United States Department of Agriculture and have suffered disproportionately from farm consolidation. Despite this, communities and farmers are rising up to challenge these injustices, and the impacts of their efforts, and the implications for the health of our nation.