Factory farms are responsible, wherever they arise, for cruelty to animals, foodborne illnesses, the abuse of workers, the destruction of rural communities, and environmental harms on an industrial scale. This fine book contains all the proof. One day we will look back in amazement that America ever allowed food to be produced this way.
—Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation and Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Incident and the Illusion of Safety

Jim Merchant and Bob Martin, with a distinguished group of collaborators, expose the harms visited on the health of the public by the oligarchic agro-industrial complex that controls the vast majority of farm animal production in the U.S. The industry weakens rural communities, exploits farmers, abuses food animals, and pollutes water, air, and soil. The authors present a compelling case for major reform and provide a viable path forward.
—Robert S. Lawrence, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and The Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future

This hard-hitting book defies meat industry pressure and obfuscation to document the devastating effects of its current production methods on the quality of air and water and on human health. It doesn't have to be this way. Here's a roadmap for a healthier and environmentally sustainable meat production system.
—Marion Nestle, New York University, Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, and author of Food Politics

This powerful and important book puts one more nail in the coffin of the 'agrarian myth,' the belief that small farm owners in rural America are happier, healthier, independent businessmen living close to nature. It documents the increased risk of illness and injuries to workers in the industrial farm world and the numerous negative health impacts of air and water pollution on the surrounding communities.
—Marc Schenker, University of California, Davis

Making our food system more competitive, resilient, just, and humane starts with understanding the ways that our current, broken system hurts everyone, from farmers to workers to consumers alike. This book catalogues some of the alarming consequences of a consolidated, industrialized food system that benefits only the big corporations that dominate it.
—US Senator Cory Booker

A courageous book of great importance. Echoing The Jungle, it explains how massive, mechanized, highly consolidated modern agriculture has degraded food quality, polluted air and water, accelerated climate change, and caused disease and death. It details how the agro-industrial complex has corrupted politicians, eroded land grant universities, and hollowed out America's heartland. A must-read not only for physicians, nurses, and public health scientists, but for elected officials and all who care about the food we eat and the world in which we live.
—Philip Landrigan, Boston College