WASHINGTON, D.C. – Amid growing consumer concern about the safety and sustainability of America’s primarily industrialized food supply, and with big agribusiness racing against the clock to “reshape the dialogue” to their advantage before the renewal of the Farm Bill, a landmark collaboration of three disparate advocacy movements aims to tackle factory farming’s impact head on. The first-ever National Conference to End Factory Farming: For Health, Environment, and Farm Animals (factoryfarmingconference.org), hosted by Farm Sanctuary and taking place October 27-29 in Arlington, Virginia, will bring together more than 30 thought-provoking experts from across the public health, environmental, and animal welfare movements.

“Factory farming is a threat to public health, the environment, and the rural communities upon which our food system desperately depend,” says Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director of Food & Water Watch. “The next Farm Bill must urgently reverse the policies that have given all of the advantages to intensive farming operations while pushing out the small and mid-sized farms that are the backbone of a system that provides us safe, healthy, and sustainable food.”

Destined to be a watershed moment in America’s food revolution, this groundbreaking conference boasts a speaker line-up that reads like a who’s who of the world’s most prominent change-makers, including U.S. Congressman James Moran (D-VA), Whole Foods Market Co-CEO John Mackey, China Study author Dr. T. Colin Campbell, and many more.

These elements, and many others, represent the true economics of factory farming.

Anchored by a full audience panel presentation devoted exclusively to the Farm Bill and its role as a key policy solution and point of collaboration for everyone concerned with factory farming’s impact on modern society, the conference will focus on new solutions for ending the systematic exploitation and destruction inherent in factory farming

“We are a nation in crisis and factory farming is a key contributor to the momentous health, ethical, and environmental problems we are facing,” says Farm Sanctuary President and Co-founder Gene Baur, who was hailed by Time magazine as “the conscience of the food movement.” “Industrialized animal agriculture is causing unprecedented damage, and, with the Farm Bill coming up for renewal, there has never been a more urgent time for environmental, health, and animal advocates to come together to make this destructive system a thing of the past.”

According to recent consumer research, 42 percent of respondents said the U.S. is “on the wrong track in the way we produce food.” Food and Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter sees the conference and the upcoming Farm Bill as “an opportunity to define more sustainable methods for meeting the nation’s food needs and to force government to do its job representing citizens’ best interests.”

The National Conference to End Factory Farming is sponsored by Whole Foods Market, ASPCA, E: The Environmental Magazine, Discovery’s TreeHugger, Healthy Living Magazine, Tranquil Space, A Well Fed World, the Humane Society of the United States, Green Patriot, PlanetSave, Mercy For Animals, Eat Drink Better, GreenMuze, Compassion Over Killing, Healthy Bitch Daily, Thrifty & Green, and Compassion in World Farming. For more information and to register, please visit farmsanctuary.org/conference. Cost is $150 per person.

Founded in 1986, Farm Sanctuary works to change how our society views and treats farm animals through rescue, education and advocacy. The organization provides lifelong care for animals rescued from abuse at sanctuary locations in New York and California; promotes compassionate vegan living; and advocates legal and policy reforms. To learn more about Farm Sanctuary, visit farmsanctuary.org.