Foodopoly: Shifting food and farm policy to protect public health

The presenter and author of Foodopoly: the battle over the future of food and farming in America, grew up on a family farm that her husband runs today as a Community Supported Agriculture Project (CSA), which is part of the growing local food movement. Yet, as one of the nation's leading healthy-food advocates, Hauter believes that the local food movement is not enough to solve America's food crisis and the public health debacle it has created. Through this presentation she will explain how the control of food production by a handful of large corporations—backed by political clout—prevents farmers from raising healthy crops, increases environmental pollution and limits the choices that people can make in the grocery store.

Based on her meticulous research, Hauter will describe the little-understood but vital realm of agricultural policy, showing how corporate power has taken precedence over human and environmental health. Once she has explained the status quo, Hauter will outline ways to solve this public health crisis. Solutions will require a complete structural shift—a change that is about politics, not just personal choice. Public health professionals, having fought and won such a battle with tobacco, are essential allies in making this much needed change.