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Transfarmation: The Movement to Free Us from Factory Farming
The story of factory farmers, rescued farm animals, and rural communities standing up to big corporations and constructing their own new world that will change the way we eat
In Transfarmation, president and CEO of Mercy For Animals Leah Garcés explains how food and farming policies have failed over decades and offers insights into the wave of change coming from a new crop of farmers and communities who are constructing a humane and sustainable farming system. Factory animal farming faces an abundance of issues—from environmental concerns and animal cruelty, to exploited farmers and poor working conditions—and more and more farmers are searching for a way out and for a new start.
Using insights from interviews and fieldwork, Garcés shares the perspectives of three
—Farmers—such as the Halley farm, where a family crushed by chicken factory farming builds a new way by transitioning their farm to growing hemp and rescuing dogs.
—Animals—like Norma, an industrial dairy cow who was sentenced to death after injuring a worker in an effort to protect her calf.
—Farm communities—including stories like how the hog industry in North Carolina preys on historically Black communities by contaminating the air and water for decades with hog pollution.
Garcés demonstrates the reasons why we must end factory farming and calls on readers to imagine a future world where Transfarmation is complete and we have transitioned to a just food and farming system.
In Transfarmation, president and CEO of Mercy For Animals Leah Garcés explains how food and farming policies have failed over decades and offers insights into the wave of change coming from a new crop of farmers and communities who are constructing a humane and sustainable farming system. Factory animal farming faces an abundance of issues—from environmental concerns and animal cruelty, to exploited farmers and poor working conditions—and more and more farmers are searching for a way out and for a new start.
Using insights from interviews and fieldwork, Garcés shares the perspectives of three
—Farmers—such as the Halley farm, where a family crushed by chicken factory farming builds a new way by transitioning their farm to growing hemp and rescuing dogs.
—Animals—like Norma, an industrial dairy cow who was sentenced to death after injuring a worker in an effort to protect her calf.
—Farm communities—including stories like how the hog industry in North Carolina preys on historically Black communities by contaminating the air and water for decades with hog pollution.
Garcés demonstrates the reasons why we must end factory farming and calls on readers to imagine a future world where Transfarmation is complete and we have transitioned to a just food and farming system.
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Published September 17, 2024
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January 29, 2025
It is rare to encounter a book regarding farming or the (mis)treatment of animals that is for so many audiences at once. Transfarmation, by Leah Garcés, happens to be one of those books. Garcés is the president of Mercy for Animals. While this particular org is often quite good at bridging divides, I still expected this book to either lean towards something mostly vegans would go for (screaming to the choir in our void of despair where everyone ignores us (joking... sorta)) or one of those books that insultingly erases the most vulnerable individuals of all species involved in farming so that the reader doesn't have to feel bad (or responsible.) Transfarmation is both emotionally honest and intellectually rigorous. It is for the city dwelling vegan with a one-dimensional view of animal farming and for the rural residents whose exploitation and injury via animal agribusiness seems like an inescapable fact of life. It is for the person most moved by true stories that tug at their heartstrings and for the person who says, "show me the numbers." Possibly most importantly, it involves a plan: Tangible, attainable solutions to the current crises we find ourselves in. There is definitely a place for exposure of the absolutely heinous abuse of animal agribusiness alone. When paired with solutions though, it leaves the reader feeling less hopeless.
The writing and structure of this book is extremely well thought out. Every section has a central individual interest storyline (aka human interest, but since this includes other species I've made it more general.) It is well documented that this is the sort of story that causes most people to change their mind. You can tell people all day about the trillions of animals who die per year for food, slaughterhouse covid transmission statistics, how many farmers take their own lives, and so on. For most people though, this isn't enough to make it stick. As much as we like to pretend otherwise, we are not rational beings. To absorb the data, we need to relate to it. Garcés does this exceptionally well.
We first focus on the farmers themselves who are manipulated by industries who profit from their work while the farmers descend further into crippling debt and despair from the actions they must take against other animals and their community to meet this capitalist need. The titular name of the book refers to the Transfarmation Project which "provides resources and support to industrial animal farmers interested in transitioning their farms to plant-focused operations." After reading this book, it is clearly about much more than that. It is about forming relationships and bridging divides. I always knew that factory farmers likely weren't evil moustache twirling animal abuse fetishists, but I also didn't realize just how much they have been manipulated to fail and how that failure is basically a central tenet of the profit model of animal exploitation corporations.
"Farmers aren't factory farming because they love the idea of being under the thumb of corporate entities and picking up dead and dying chickens. They do it because they are trapped in debt and have few other economic options."
We learn next about farmed animals by focusing on a few who make up the miniscule minority who are rescued and can have their tales told. I particularly like that she focused on a chickens and cows exploited for dairy as agribusiness industries have lobbied hard to make these seem like less horrific options (they are not.) We learn of three chickens a farmer was willing to let go of and the bits of freedom they were allowed to experience before succumbing to the inevitable demise caused by industries who breed their bodies to be their own enemies. We learn of Norma the former dairy cow who was rescued after defending her calf Nina after so many forced inseminations she had experienced previously where her calves were stolen from her within a day. This story has a happier ending where we learn that both she and her calf were rescued and reunited. I also love that Garcés chose VINE Sanctuary as the focus for one of the stories as their collective liberation models of organizing and care are revolutionary. They fit well into the aims of the book to further the conversation to include the humans most exploited by these industries.
The narrative of the book is next expanded into the larger community, where we learn about the disproportionately low income BIPOC communities who find themselves surrounded on all sides by farms imprisoning pigs that spray literal feces into the air they breathe and the homes they sleep in. We learn about the lengths they have had to go to to literally organize for the right to breathe shit-free air when the county sheriff is also a hog farmer. We learn how even the BIPOC communities who have homes to hand down over generations find those homes and neighborhoods now uninhabitable. Following this, we move on to the immigrant communities- a large number of whom are undocumented or are still awaiting citizenship approval- who work in the slaughter facilities. We learn of the heinous lengths they go to to survive their trip into the country, only to be forced into a processing plant that demands impossible speeds of killing and dismembering animals, resulting in physical injuries, severe PTSD, disease, and death. We also learn of the refugee communities who may have more support, but who find themselves placed into and therefore harmed by the same job in order to gain any benefits from their refugee status. "Processing" plants rely on the vulnerability of these workers along with prison laborers paid 25 cents an hour. This means they are also often run by men who sexually harass and assault workers, who make threats and defy the already meager legal restrictions, and so on. We learn what it is like to be a mother forced to do a job bludgeoning baby pigs. We learn of the slaughter rate of 3 chickens per second allowed by both democrat and republican legislatures, causing immense pain for the workers and resulting in the birds who are not killed fast enough drowning in scalding water.
That summary may make it seem like a trauma dump, but I assure you that this book is not that. My already long review has its limits. We also learn of these peoples hopes, desires, and joys. We learn of the lives they could have- lives that are indeed possible with change. The book ends with a grounded and detailed section including solutions for every problem it presents which include further support for farmers to transition away from factory farming, animal welfare measures making animals lives slightly less miserable, unions and worker protection measures for those laboring in farms and slaughterhouses, and systemic economic changes. While I have not followed every single effort, I have generally found Mercy for Animals to be an org that understands how to mix welfarism with abolition (a long standing argument occurring between animal advocates.) However, I was not the biggest fan of how cage free eggs were spoken of. While she does acknowledge that the practice does not come close to eliminating suffering, she neglects the marketing aspect of these (predominantly also factory farming) companies that make well intentioned but misled people imagine chickens running around happily in the grass and dying of old age, when the reality is far more horrific. These corporations lack empathy but not cunning. They know how to market any loss to turn it into a win and we need to think of that. That said, if I was in a battery cage the size of a small closet with 7 other people and someone offered me a large, crowded, dank warehouse to die in instead, I would choose the latter.
If you will allow me a final moment for a more personal vent. The information in this book not only infuriated and hurt due to the horrifying nature of atrocity. It bothered me because I worry that, no matter how perfectly the information is presented, it won't be heard. The group I kept thinking of most throughout this book, were the non/anti-vegan leftists who use strawmen and tokenization to avoid taking a hard look at our relationships to these industries and their victims. This is likely because anti-vegan sentiment often hurts the most when it comes from a respected leftist turned reactionary, a skilled environmentalist turned agribusiness lobbyist, and so on. White, single issue vegans (like white single issue proponents of any movement) are in part to blame for the divide, and there are legitimate criticisms. But, I rarely find honest conversation. I find defensiveness and cognitive dissonance. It reminds me of the Rob Zombie quote, "Everyone "loves" animals until they hear the word 'vegan'. Then they'll argue tooth and nail why it's acceptable to abuse them." I would love to see non/anti-vegan leftists read this book. I want to hear what they have to say about farmworkers picking vegans' plants (who they only bring up when veganism is a topic despite most farmland going to animal agribusiness and feed,) after they read about the struggle of slaughterhouse workers (who they of course never mention.) I want to hear from the upper middle class white person who tokenizes BIPOC communities in these discussions (while simultaneously erasing them) explain to me why spraying pig feces on their homes for bacon is helping. I also want the vegetarians and the "humane" slaughter proponents to pay attention- not the ones who are just doing the best they can, but the "not like the other girls" subset who are hostile to animal rights and veganism. I want them to understand the cost of dairy and eggs and how it is often higher than the meat they abstain from for ethical reasons. I want them to read about what happens to these animals and the humans forced into hell with them.
I say this as someone who almost 19 years ago was a non-vegan. Most of us were not born with perfected leftist ideals making us immune to the world influence we grew up in. Many of us, including recovering teen edgelords like myself, were first hostile to the idea of animal liberation or criticism of various related systems. This vent isn't meant as a superiority thing. It's meant to lay bare that many of the arguments my usually otherwise like minded kin make against animal liberation and veganism are awful and self-contradictory. They are almost always a hard turn to the far right or doing the work of capitalism via tokenization. They are often bad faith and even recreate the oppression dynamics that we claim to be against. This hurts not just because the arguments are harmful, but because I don't think they believe them in their hearts. There is room for more. There is room for a better world for all of us.
Please read this book. Read it even if you think you and I have nothing in common. You may find that we do. I hope this book helps others create the kinds of relationships and successful transitions that the author and her fellow organizers have created. Despite how tough it was at times, it gave me more hope than I have had in a while.
This was also posted to my storygraph and blog.
The writing and structure of this book is extremely well thought out. Every section has a central individual interest storyline (aka human interest, but since this includes other species I've made it more general.) It is well documented that this is the sort of story that causes most people to change their mind. You can tell people all day about the trillions of animals who die per year for food, slaughterhouse covid transmission statistics, how many farmers take their own lives, and so on. For most people though, this isn't enough to make it stick. As much as we like to pretend otherwise, we are not rational beings. To absorb the data, we need to relate to it. Garcés does this exceptionally well.
We first focus on the farmers themselves who are manipulated by industries who profit from their work while the farmers descend further into crippling debt and despair from the actions they must take against other animals and their community to meet this capitalist need. The titular name of the book refers to the Transfarmation Project which "provides resources and support to industrial animal farmers interested in transitioning their farms to plant-focused operations." After reading this book, it is clearly about much more than that. It is about forming relationships and bridging divides. I always knew that factory farmers likely weren't evil moustache twirling animal abuse fetishists, but I also didn't realize just how much they have been manipulated to fail and how that failure is basically a central tenet of the profit model of animal exploitation corporations.
"Farmers aren't factory farming because they love the idea of being under the thumb of corporate entities and picking up dead and dying chickens. They do it because they are trapped in debt and have few other economic options."
We learn next about farmed animals by focusing on a few who make up the miniscule minority who are rescued and can have their tales told. I particularly like that she focused on a chickens and cows exploited for dairy as agribusiness industries have lobbied hard to make these seem like less horrific options (they are not.) We learn of three chickens a farmer was willing to let go of and the bits of freedom they were allowed to experience before succumbing to the inevitable demise caused by industries who breed their bodies to be their own enemies. We learn of Norma the former dairy cow who was rescued after defending her calf Nina after so many forced inseminations she had experienced previously where her calves were stolen from her within a day. This story has a happier ending where we learn that both she and her calf were rescued and reunited. I also love that Garcés chose VINE Sanctuary as the focus for one of the stories as their collective liberation models of organizing and care are revolutionary. They fit well into the aims of the book to further the conversation to include the humans most exploited by these industries.
The narrative of the book is next expanded into the larger community, where we learn about the disproportionately low income BIPOC communities who find themselves surrounded on all sides by farms imprisoning pigs that spray literal feces into the air they breathe and the homes they sleep in. We learn about the lengths they have had to go to to literally organize for the right to breathe shit-free air when the county sheriff is also a hog farmer. We learn how even the BIPOC communities who have homes to hand down over generations find those homes and neighborhoods now uninhabitable. Following this, we move on to the immigrant communities- a large number of whom are undocumented or are still awaiting citizenship approval- who work in the slaughter facilities. We learn of the heinous lengths they go to to survive their trip into the country, only to be forced into a processing plant that demands impossible speeds of killing and dismembering animals, resulting in physical injuries, severe PTSD, disease, and death. We also learn of the refugee communities who may have more support, but who find themselves placed into and therefore harmed by the same job in order to gain any benefits from their refugee status. "Processing" plants rely on the vulnerability of these workers along with prison laborers paid 25 cents an hour. This means they are also often run by men who sexually harass and assault workers, who make threats and defy the already meager legal restrictions, and so on. We learn what it is like to be a mother forced to do a job bludgeoning baby pigs. We learn of the slaughter rate of 3 chickens per second allowed by both democrat and republican legislatures, causing immense pain for the workers and resulting in the birds who are not killed fast enough drowning in scalding water.
That summary may make it seem like a trauma dump, but I assure you that this book is not that. My already long review has its limits. We also learn of these peoples hopes, desires, and joys. We learn of the lives they could have- lives that are indeed possible with change. The book ends with a grounded and detailed section including solutions for every problem it presents which include further support for farmers to transition away from factory farming, animal welfare measures making animals lives slightly less miserable, unions and worker protection measures for those laboring in farms and slaughterhouses, and systemic economic changes. While I have not followed every single effort, I have generally found Mercy for Animals to be an org that understands how to mix welfarism with abolition (a long standing argument occurring between animal advocates.) However, I was not the biggest fan of how cage free eggs were spoken of. While she does acknowledge that the practice does not come close to eliminating suffering, she neglects the marketing aspect of these (predominantly also factory farming) companies that make well intentioned but misled people imagine chickens running around happily in the grass and dying of old age, when the reality is far more horrific. These corporations lack empathy but not cunning. They know how to market any loss to turn it into a win and we need to think of that. That said, if I was in a battery cage the size of a small closet with 7 other people and someone offered me a large, crowded, dank warehouse to die in instead, I would choose the latter.
If you will allow me a final moment for a more personal vent. The information in this book not only infuriated and hurt due to the horrifying nature of atrocity. It bothered me because I worry that, no matter how perfectly the information is presented, it won't be heard. The group I kept thinking of most throughout this book, were the non/anti-vegan leftists who use strawmen and tokenization to avoid taking a hard look at our relationships to these industries and their victims. This is likely because anti-vegan sentiment often hurts the most when it comes from a respected leftist turned reactionary, a skilled environmentalist turned agribusiness lobbyist, and so on. White, single issue vegans (like white single issue proponents of any movement) are in part to blame for the divide, and there are legitimate criticisms. But, I rarely find honest conversation. I find defensiveness and cognitive dissonance. It reminds me of the Rob Zombie quote, "Everyone "loves" animals until they hear the word 'vegan'. Then they'll argue tooth and nail why it's acceptable to abuse them." I would love to see non/anti-vegan leftists read this book. I want to hear what they have to say about farmworkers picking vegans' plants (who they only bring up when veganism is a topic despite most farmland going to animal agribusiness and feed,) after they read about the struggle of slaughterhouse workers (who they of course never mention.) I want to hear from the upper middle class white person who tokenizes BIPOC communities in these discussions (while simultaneously erasing them) explain to me why spraying pig feces on their homes for bacon is helping. I also want the vegetarians and the "humane" slaughter proponents to pay attention- not the ones who are just doing the best they can, but the "not like the other girls" subset who are hostile to animal rights and veganism. I want them to understand the cost of dairy and eggs and how it is often higher than the meat they abstain from for ethical reasons. I want them to read about what happens to these animals and the humans forced into hell with them.
I say this as someone who almost 19 years ago was a non-vegan. Most of us were not born with perfected leftist ideals making us immune to the world influence we grew up in. Many of us, including recovering teen edgelords like myself, were first hostile to the idea of animal liberation or criticism of various related systems. This vent isn't meant as a superiority thing. It's meant to lay bare that many of the arguments my usually otherwise like minded kin make against animal liberation and veganism are awful and self-contradictory. They are almost always a hard turn to the far right or doing the work of capitalism via tokenization. They are often bad faith and even recreate the oppression dynamics that we claim to be against. This hurts not just because the arguments are harmful, but because I don't think they believe them in their hearts. There is room for more. There is room for a better world for all of us.
Please read this book. Read it even if you think you and I have nothing in common. You may find that we do. I hope this book helps others create the kinds of relationships and successful transitions that the author and her fellow organizers have created. Despite how tough it was at times, it gave me more hope than I have had in a while.
This was also posted to my storygraph and blog.
November 9, 2025
If I hadn’t already been vegan, I would be after reading this book. I’m not sure how anyone can learn about the truths of the animal ag industry and be okay with how everyone (humans and non humans) involved in the process are treated. No one wins except the corporate executives and do we really want them to continue getting away with record profits?? I don’t think so!
This was written with a very compelling structure while touching on the various components of the affected parties in the agricultural world. The different animals, workers, communities, families, and livelihoods highlighted paid homage to everyone’s respective perspective. So many people are adversely affected by the barbaric animal ag business but hope was sparked and my faith in humanity was restored when learning about the work the Transfarmation Project is doing.
This was written with a very compelling structure while touching on the various components of the affected parties in the agricultural world. The different animals, workers, communities, families, and livelihoods highlighted paid homage to everyone’s respective perspective. So many people are adversely affected by the barbaric animal ag business but hope was sparked and my faith in humanity was restored when learning about the work the Transfarmation Project is doing.
January 2, 2025
Really nicely written. I haven’t known much about the effects of factory farming on the farmer itself. It was illuminating and really sad to learn about.
But it’s also nice because this isn’t a doom book and there’s a lot of great actual activism happening within it. I started a monthly donation to the project lol.
But it’s also nice because this isn’t a doom book and there’s a lot of great actual activism happening within it. I started a monthly donation to the project lol.
November 24, 2025
I learned a ton from this book and I hope to reread it to really absorb it all. It had me bawling my eyes out sometimes but I appreciate this approach. I don’t always agree with it but I can appreciate it. Extremely well written and hopeful. As an anarchist, I don’t really love where she ends up but as someone desperate to believe there is hope, I do love it. Unfortunately, I cannot stay as hopeful as the author. Her saying change may take decades…we don’t have decades for small changes. The world is rapidly dying. But also, no way these institutions change that much overnight. So I appreciate her attempts! Great book that isn’t preachy and just informative, making an argument against factory farming.
July 2, 2025
If there's any book to show the multilayered system of oppression existing within the animal agriculture industry, it's this one. We hear from farmers who were/are locked into endless debt caused by corrupt, capitalistic mega-corporations. The local communities surrounding farms—typically PoC—who garner terrible health effects due to the mass amount of faeces and urine produced that is literally sprayed onto them (plus threatening behaviour from others in the community). The marginalized people, including immigrants and refugees, who like the farmers, are locked into their slaughterhouse jobs out of survival, resulting in horrific chronic illness and injuries—both physical and mental—as well as SA. And last but not least, individual cases of farmed animals, like a group of sickly chickens saved from their deaths (though two end up succumbing to their industry illnesses/genetic modifications shortly after) by the author, a mother cow who fiercely fought for her and her daughter's freedom, and pigs whose liberator was a local flooding. That section was by far the hardest to get through, with tears pouring out of my eyes the whole time reading the chicken chapter.
While there is a lot of despair to be felt when reading something like this, it also gave me encouragement towards seeing a future where the pain of suffering done and endured by humans and the farmed animals will be lessened and eventually gone for good. Having real-life examples of farms that did away with the relentless suffering and managed to switch to something a lot less harmful and a lot more fulfilling, like mushroom farming, is what I hold on to and is super helpful when trying to get others on board with this cause. This book is an invaluable resource that I will definitely be sharing around.
While there is a lot of despair to be felt when reading something like this, it also gave me encouragement towards seeing a future where the pain of suffering done and endured by humans and the farmed animals will be lessened and eventually gone for good. Having real-life examples of farms that did away with the relentless suffering and managed to switch to something a lot less harmful and a lot more fulfilling, like mushroom farming, is what I hold on to and is super helpful when trying to get others on board with this cause. This book is an invaluable resource that I will definitely be sharing around.
April 27, 2025
This book makes a compelling case for why we need to change animal agriculture in the US. The author (perhaps wisely) chose not to center animal suffering, but instead focuses on the impacts of factory farming on people, especially Black, immigrant, refugee, and low-income white communities who are exploited by agribusiness practices. Before reading this, I didn't realize that, by and large, the people working in factory farms are the very people who are most anxious to reform the system-- in many cases they would love to walk away and turn over a new leaf, if they had the means. The book details how several farming families, tired of being trapped in poverty and compelled to engage in inhumane and unsafe practices, successfully transitioned to other livelihoods (hemp farming, mushroom farming, producing crops in greenhouses, etc.) with the help of the Transfarmation Project.
There was only one chapter I feel the need to critique, and that's the one about Henrietta the hen. I too am a vegetarian who has pet rescue chickens that I love dearly, but I do NOT cuddle them or keep them inside my home (not on the verge of an HPAI pandemic, no thanks-- or even in light of more mundane pathogens like Campylobacter, which the author experienced firsthand!) or allow them to roam freely outdoors at constant risk of predation. Suffice to say the author has a lot to learn in regards to best practices for keeping chickens, but I certainly appreciate her compassion that moved her to rescue Henrietta and write about her in a way that will hopefully get readers to view chickens differently.
There was only one chapter I feel the need to critique, and that's the one about Henrietta the hen. I too am a vegetarian who has pet rescue chickens that I love dearly, but I do NOT cuddle them or keep them inside my home (not on the verge of an HPAI pandemic, no thanks-- or even in light of more mundane pathogens like Campylobacter, which the author experienced firsthand!) or allow them to roam freely outdoors at constant risk of predation. Suffice to say the author has a lot to learn in regards to best practices for keeping chickens, but I certainly appreciate her compassion that moved her to rescue Henrietta and write about her in a way that will hopefully get readers to view chickens differently.
October 6, 2024
Really great book about the possible transition of factory farmers to more ethical business models. Extremely well written from the subjective perspective of the author, and the personal stories of people she met on her pathway. There is tons of information about the trap set by huge corporations on farmers, their financial struggles, and looking for a way out for themselves and their families. The book also covers the story of slaughterhouse workers - often immigrants, being exposed to extremely demanding and dangerous jobs for the worst pay. Overall, a powerful story of how broken the factory farming system is, not only for the animals but also for the humans that help to run it. The only thing that I thought was not addressed is the side of demand - even if we manage to convince the farmers to transition, if there is a huge demand for meat, it will simply be imported from regions with even poorer animal welfare and worker conditions. So the trap of the meat industry is very well set, and to overcome it we need a huge movement and multi-faceted approach, that will help animals now (welfare improvements), decrease the demand for meat, and help the industry to profit from something more ethical. Quite a complex puzzle, and this book really helps us to learn, how many pieces there are to think about, and how much misery these systems create for humans involved in them.
I highly recommend it, as it's a great, fascinating, and beautiful story. I feel that the author knows how to move the reader by showing her own perspective on how to build a better world for animals.
I highly recommend it, as it's a great, fascinating, and beautiful story. I feel that the author knows how to move the reader by showing her own perspective on how to build a better world for animals.
November 24, 2025
A hopeful read for every vegan despairing of the world ever changing. If I could I'd make it a mandatory read for every meat-eater who wants to pretend eating meat is moral.
October 4, 2024
This is one of the most important books everyone should read this year—and beyond. The world it reveals is difficult to put into words, as it both opens your eyes and profoundly affects you. For so long, I was unaware of what really goes on behind the scenes in the production of the meat we consume (or, in my case, used to consume) every day.
I’m fully convinced that if people could see where their meat and dairy come from, 99% would stop eating animals immediately. Not for one reason only.
Thank you, Leah Garćes, for this thoroughly researched, informative, and hopeful book and for enhancing animals' rights, human safety, and the planet's existence.
I’m fully convinced that if people could see where their meat and dairy come from, 99% would stop eating animals immediately. Not for one reason only.
Thank you, Leah Garćes, for this thoroughly researched, informative, and hopeful book and for enhancing animals' rights, human safety, and the planet's existence.
November 3, 2024
American agriculture is among the most productive in the world. The result is a bountiful food supply at relatively low cost to consumers. Others see the need, however, for radical change in the agricultural industry. Leah Garces is the founder of the Transfarmation Project and president of the organization Mercy for Animals. Garces describes the current model of factory animal farming as one beset with problems ranging from environmental concerns and animal cruelty to exploited farmers and poor working conditions. She suggests that federal government agriculture policy favors intensive industrial agriculture over more ecologically friendly and regenerative agricultural practices. Garces does believe, however, that a better food production system is possible. This system would eliminate largescale industrial operations and would create new models of alternative economic opportunities. These ideas are based on the author’s activist animal protection experience. Garces is, furthermore, the author of Grilled: Turning Adversaries into Allies to Change the Chicken Industry (Bloomsbury 2019). This latest book is a worthy companion to that earlier book for an understanding of the many challenges facing today’s agricultural industry. Highly recommended for readers concerned about agriculture and the future of our nation’s food production.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews