(CNN) Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders announced his plan to support rural America on Sunday, promising to hold factory farms and corporate agribusiness accountable by strengthening regulations to protect smaller family farms.

"I come from one of the most rural and the most beautiful states in the United States, I will not write off rural America," the Vermont senator told a cheering crowd in Osage, Iowa.

"Maybe I'm kind of radical here, but I think a farmer who produces the food that we eat is maybe almost as important as some crook on Wall Street who destroys the economy," he added.

In his remarks, Sanders lamented how many small farmers are often at the financial mercy of a single buyer or supplier setting prices.

"Agribusiness conglomerates extract as much wealth out of small communities as they possibly can while family farmers are going bankrupt and in many ways are being treated like modern day indentured servants," he said.

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