Industrial Farm Animal Production, the Environment, and Public Health

Industrial Farm Animal Production, the Environment, and Public Health, is edited by James Merchant and Robert Martin. Retired Senator Tom Harkin (Iowa) wrote the foreword for the book. Merchant is the founding dean emeritus of the University of Iowa College of Public Health, and Martin is a senior adviser to the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future (CLF), where he served as a policy and food systems program director from 2011 to 2023.

This book is intended to update the evidence on the public health and environmental damage of these operations to inform the work of policymakers, students, academics, and advocacy groups working to reform this aspect of the food system.

In the book, Merchant and Martin bring together public health and other experts to explore the most critical topics related to industrial livestock production. Some of the more well-known contributors to the book include worker safety and health policy expert and advocate Debbie Berkowitz, ranchers and author Nicolette Hahn Niman and Bill Niman; John Ikerd, an author and professor emeritus of agricultural economics; and public health researchers such as Tara Smith, Greg Gray, and Christopher Jones.

Researchers affiliated with the Center made important contributions as authors on a range of topics. Authors include D’Ann Williams, Chris Heaney, and Tom Philpott.

• Read more about the book in the press release
• Purchase the book directly from the Johns Hopkins University Press