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Welcome to Talking Feds, a round table that brings together prominent figures from government

law and journalism for a dynamic discussion of the most important topics of the day.

I'm Harry Littman. If you're like me, you understand abstractly that our system for producing

meat and other food in this country is broken. It inflicts horrific suffering on animals,

harms the environment, and leaves us prone to disease. But you may not know the half of it.

I certainly didn't, before this special Talking Feds episode about our farming system.

The harms of big agriculture that I did know about are far more severe than I recognized.

And then there are the harms that American consumers are scarcely aware of.

Big eggs near monopolistic control over every aspect of meat production.

Its displacement of more than 1 million independent family farms,

its production of more than 10% of the nation's greenhouse gases,

its promotion of unsafe working conditions for hundreds of thousands of employees,

drawn disproportionately from communities of color, and its conversion of the neighborhoods

in which its factories are located into swamps of sickness.

The problem is so woven into our daily lives that imagining a better system can seem beyond our reach.

But there are national leaders who are doing the heavy lifting of shining a light on the impact

of big ag on the economy, environment, and good health of Americans, and pushing for tenable solutions.

And we're really fortunate that three of them are here today.

And they are?

Lea Petaman, a farmer activist and author.

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