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The Iowa City Public Library and 100 Grannies invite you to a discussion on Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) and Water Pollution in Iowa, with guest speakers Sonja Trom Eayrs and Chris Jones. 

Author, attorney and rural activist Sonja Trom Eayrs grew up on the Trom family farm in Dodge County, Minnesota. Her family has been on the frontlines for decades fighting corporate agriculture and the takeover of the food supply by a few multinational corporations. Sonja'a story is captured in her recent book, Dodge County, Incorporated: Big Ag and the Undoing of Rural America (University of Nebraska Press, Nov. 2024). Dodge County, Incorporated is a legal drama recounting her elderly parents’ three rounds of litigation against county officials and industry insiders in efforts to prevent a hog factory farm from going up across the road from their intergenerational family farm. It provides a rare insider’s account, showing how the corporate restructuring of rural areas and profiteering of Big Ag corporations impact the political, economic, and cultural fate of a single rural community. 

Chris Jones retired in 2023 from the University of Iowa where he worked as a research engineer studying contaminant hydrology in agricultural landscapes. Prior to that he worked for the Des Moines Water Works and the Iowa Soybean Association. He has a PhD in analytical chemistry from Montana State University and a BA in Chemistry and Biology from Simpson College in Indianola. He is the author of The Swine Republic, Struggles With the Truth About Agriculture and Water Quality. Chris is currently a candidate for Iowa Secretary of Agriculture.  

This live event will also be streamed live on the Library's YouTube channel.