Join Magers & Quinn for a discussion of Dodge County, Incorporated: Big Ag and the Undoing of Rural America, led by author and Minnesota attorney, Sonja Trom Eayrs. It’s a compelling legal drama recounting the Trom family’s three rounds of litigation against the county board in Dodge County, Minnesota, in efforts to prevent a corporate factory farm from going up across the road from their intergenerational family farm. The Trom family has been on the frontlines for decades fighting corporate agriculture and the transformation of rural America. Today, the Trom farm is surrounded by 12 swine factory farms in a 3-mile radius. With the factual rigor of an attorney and the passion of a farmer’s daughter, Sonja weaves together her family’s struggles to fight corporate injustices in rural America and the larger story of corporate livestock production in the United States: the air and water pollution, the cancer clusters, the destruction of local communities and economies, and the erosion of the democratic process.

Dodge County provides a rare insider’s account, showing how the corporate restructuring of rural areas and profiteering of Big Ag corporations impacts the political, economic, and cultural fate of a single rural community.

Full blurbs are are available at Sonja’s author website: https://www.sonjatromeayrs.com/.

Sonja Trom Eayrs, author of Dodge County, Incorporated: Big Ag and the Undoing of Rural America, is a farmer’s daughter, rural advocate, and attorney. She is involved in several rural advocacy organizations, including the Socially Responsible Agriculture Project, Farm Action, Land Stewardship Project, and Dodge County Concerned Citizens. Trom Eayrs also serves for the Trom family farm in Dodge County, Minnesota.

Scott Dibble first became involved in politics in the mid-1980’s in the LGBTQ movement for greater freedom and equality and for the rights of those with HIV/AIDS, leading to involvement on issues of social, racial and economic justice—especially in the areas of neighborhood livability, transportation, housing, criminal justice, energy and the environment.

He served one term in the House first elected in 2000 and is now serving his sixth term in the Senate. His leadership led to passage of a historic transportation funding measure, the establishment of Housing Co-Ops in MN Law, enactment of the Freedom to Breathe Act (smoke-free indoor air) and the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act. Dibble was the legislative leader and chief author of the Safe Schools for All Minnesota Students Act, a national model of bullying prevention. He helped lead the campaign for the defeat of an anti-marriage constitutional amendment in 2012, turning that into momentum for passage of his freedom to marry bill the following year. He has fought successfully for a tenant bill of rights, improvements for Minneapolis Community and Technical College, more solar energy, and for the rights of tipped employees. He works on critical clean air, global warming, and economic challenges with initiatives on energy efficiency, renewable energy, mercury emissions reductions, eliminating greenhouse gases from transportation, and green buildings (including solar on schools). Dibble currently lives in Minneapolis with his husband Richard Leyva.