1pm / According to Food Democracy Now's Dave Murphy, decades of biased farm policy and unchecked corporate mergers have driven independent family farmers out of business and created powerful corporate factory farms and agribusiness giants that now dominate the market. Today our food system is controlled by only a handful of multinational corporations - corporate giants like Monsanto, Dupont, Cargill, Tyson and Smithfield. Without little or no competition, these giants determine what kind of food you buy and how farmers produce it.

On Friday, March 12, the Department of Justice/USDA will hold an antitrust hearing in Ankeny, Iowa on issues of competition in agriculture to determine if there's enough evidence to investigate whether agribusiness giants in the U.S. constitute unfair monopolies. To attend Friday's historic DOJ/USDA hearing you can click on the link below to register:http://fdn.actionkit.com/go/120?akid=101.84815.y1_jk7&t=7 The night before The night before a townhall meeting with some of the nation's leading voices from family farm, labor and social justice groups will take place in Ankeny which address antitrust and market concentration in food and agriculture. FOr more info: http://fdn.actionkit.com/go/119?akid=101.84815.y1_jk7&t=5

1:30pm / Ronnie Cummins has been active as a writer and activist since the 1960s, with extensive experience in human rights, anti-war, anti-nuclear, labor, consumer, environmental, and sustainable agriculture campaigns. Over the past decades he has served as director of US and international efforts such as the Pure Food Campaign and the Global Days of Action Against GMOs. From 1992-98 Cummins served as a campaign director for the Foundation on Economic Trends in Washington, D.C. In 1998, Cummins organized the SOS (Save Organic Standards) Campaign, spearheading the largest consumer grassroots backlash against the US Department of Agriculture in recent history. He is also a frequent lecturer, both in the US and abroad. Cummins is editor of the Organic Consumers Association’s website www.organicconsumers.org, Organic Bytes newsletters, and Organic View.

He will be giving a free public lecture entitled Climate Catastrophe: How Organic Agriculture and Green Technology Can Help Us Survive the 21^st Century on Wednesday, March 10, 7:30pm at the Fairfield Public Library. Cummins’ visit to Fairfield is sponsored by Sustainability Research Institute, the not-for-profit research arm of The Sky Factory, LC.