America’s Favorite Rotisserie Chicken Has a Secret

For millions of Americans, a Costco rotisserie chicken signals comfort, convenience, and value. It’s the meal you grab after a long workday, the centerpiece of a busy family’s weeknight dinner, or the secret ingredient in countless soups, salads, and casseroles.

But while the $4.99 chicken has earned near-mythic status among shoppers, most don’t know what’s happening long before that bird reaches grocery shelves Few realize that the chicken they’re placing into their cart may have come from a facility that, according to Farm Forward’s analysis of USDA data, fails federal salmonella safety standards year after year and has been cited repeatedly for animal welfare violations.

Costco has a salmonella problem and a welfare problem, and the company is doing little to fix it, relying instead on consumers’ ignorance about what goes on behind the scenes in its chicken supply chain. Farm Forward’s latest research pulls back the curtain on the company’s dirty secret that poses a significant threat to public health.

The Nebraska Plant That Powers America’s Rotisserie Habit

In 2019, Costco’s Lincoln Premium Poultry (LPP) opened a $450 million poultry complex in Fremont, Nebraska—its first-ever attempt to raise, slaughter, and process chickens entirely in-house. It was hailed as a revolution in retail: a company so determined to keep its chicken at $4.99 that it built an entire supply chain from the ground up. This model of vertical integration means that the company controls every stage of production, from hatcheries and feed mills to grower farms to processing, slaughter, and retail distribution.

Every year, the LPP plant processes more than 100 million chickens for Costco’s rotisserie chickens and Kirkland Signature raw chicken breasts. Every year, 7.2 million of these birds die from disease or mistreatment before they even reach slaughter. Every year, salmonella-contaminated products are shipped to Costco stores around the country to be purchased by unsuspecting shoppers.

Controlling the supply chain was supposed to guarantee quality and safety. But from the moment the plant opened, USDA records tell a very different story.

Just how much salmonella is in Costco chicken?

Farm Forward’s review of USDA inspection records reveal that it’s a lot. The USDA sets standards for salmonella contamination based on a three-category system for poultry plants. Category 3 plants fail the standard. Costco’s LPP plant has received a Category 3 rating 92% of the time since it opened in 2019. This means that from day one, the plant has had a chronic contamination problem and has failed year after year to clean up its act.

USDA’s salmonella standards allow for shockingly high rates of contamination, even in products that pass the standard. A passing grade allows for contamination in 9.8% of whole chicken carcasses (like those used for the rotisserie bird) and 15.4% of chicken parts (like Kirkland Signature’s raw chicken breasts). But LPP fails the standard nearly all of the time, meaning that contamination rates in chicken coming into Costco stores could be much higher than even these shockingly high contamination thresholds.

How does this translate for shoppers? More than roughly 1 in 10 of whole chickens from the LPP plant destined for the rotisserie came into the store contaminated with salmonella and more than roughly 1 in 6 packages of raw chicken breasts from that plant are contaminated. This means that if you routinely pick up a couple of packages of chicken breasts during your weekly Costco shopping trip, the likelihood is high that you’re bringing home chicken with this dangerous foodborne pathogen every month. When you line up at the checkout with that rotisserie chicken in your cart, more than one of every ten chickens unloaded onto the conveyor belt could have entered the store contaminated with salmonella.

Why is Costco allowed to sell contaminated chicken?

You’d think that failing the USDA’s salmonella safety standard would prevent a company like Costco from selling highly contaminated products. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Although the USDA can inspect and assign passing and failing ratings (and these are posted publicly on the agency’s website), USDA does not have the authority to stop the sale of or issue recalls for highly contaminated products, nor does it have the power to shut down plants that repeatedly fail the standard or issue any corrective action for the worst offenders.

In 2024, USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service proposed a “Salmonella Framework for Raw Poultry Products” that would have designated salmonella as an adulterant in raw poultry—a move that would have made it illegal to sell products adulterated with the pathogen. In April 2025, this proposed rule was withdrawn. The result? USDA continues to be powerless in regulating salmonella and companies like Costco continue to sell highly contaminated products.

Why is there such rampant contamination in the poultry industry?

The poultry industry claims that salmonella contamination is an unavoidable problem. But this obscures the reality: the way that birds are bred, raised, and slaughtered for meat is an intentional choice by an industry that creates the perfect breeding ground for pathogens and the spread of dangerous diseases.

Salmonella isn’t just a problem during slaughter and processing (although that’s the only place that the USDA tracks contamination)—it starts upstream with the very genetics of the birds and travels through every stage of the supply chain.

Costco’s birds, like most in the poultry industry, are bred to grow so abnormally fast that their legs often buckle beneath them, meaning many can barely walk. Their bodies grow faster than their immune systems can keep up, leaving them more vulnerable to illness—including salmonella.

Hatcheries are where salmonella contamination begins as the pathogen is passed through the eggs to the chicks who then carry the disease through the rest of the supply chain. Contamination is accelerated when chickens are raised in barns that hold tens of thousands of birds in dimly lit spaces thick with ammonia fumes, feces, and dead birds. When animals live in these conditions, disease travels fast.

Transport is yet another site of cross contamination, culminating in slaughter and processing where the birds are bled out and dismembered, spreading salmonella throughout the plants and ending up in packages destined for Costco’s stores.

Costco’s Abuse of Birds Only Makes Salmonella Contamination Worse

Suffering birds make sick birds and sick birds make people sick. USDA acknowledges that stress and poor welfare increase pathogen levels in farmed birds. Stress is endemic in industrial chicken production: intensive confinement, overcrowding, abrupt handling, rough transport, extreme temperatures, and processing birds for slaughter all weaken their defenses, opening the door for bacteria to spread.

Farm Forward’s analysis shows a clear overlap between Costco’s worst salmonella ratings and a series of humane handling violations at the LPP plant. USDA inspection reports show that, in recent years, thousands of Costco birds have died during transport—freezing to death, suffocating in overcrowded trucks, or perishing in a trailer fire. A 2021 Mercy for Animals investigation painted an even starker picture: dim barns thick with ammonia, birds too large to stand, open sores, and animals unable to reach food or water. Costco dismissed much of the footage as “normal and uneventful activity,” a telling reflection of how deeply these conditions are baked into its low-cost model.

Federal welfare protections do not apply to farmed birds, and adherence to what few welfare guidelines there are is entirely voluntary for the industry. Companies are not, then, held accountable for either salmonella contamination or animal welfare, despite the growing body of evidence that links the two.

Following the public outcry around Costco’s cruelty to its chickens, a shareholder lawsuit against the company for mistreatment of birds, and the 7.2 million birds Costco reports die before reaching slaughter each year, the company has shown no progress. Its persistent salmonella failures reveal what happens when poor welfare and weak oversight collide—and the hidden risks that come with that cheap Costco chicken.

The True Price of a $4.99 Chicken

On the surface, Costco’s rotisserie chicken looks like the ultimate win for consumers: filling, affordable, delicious. But the true cost is hidden—from crowded barns to weak regulations to contamination that slips through the cracks of a system not built to protect shoppers.

What began as a strategy to keep prices low has become a long-running public-health concern. And until Costco confronts the conditions under which its chickens are raised, processed, and transported, shoppers may continue paying a price far beyond $4.99.

Want the full story?

For more detail on the true costs of Costco’s chicken, read Farm Forward’s issue brief. To learn more about salmonella contamination and animal welfare issues across the poultry industry—and where Costco’s supply chain fits into the bigger picture—read our full investigative report.

Foodborne illnesses have long posed a serious public health risk, but in recent decades, their threat has intensified with the emergence of antibiotic resistance—what the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has described as “one of the greatest global public health challenges of our time.” The industrial animal sector is both a leading cause of the deepening antibiotic resistance crisis and a primary source of foodborne illnesses.

Antibiotics are administered to farmed animals not only when they are acutely ill, but also routinely, accelerating growth and preventing disease in overcrowded, unsanitary conditions. This routine application of antibiotics creates the perfect environment for resistant bacteria to emerge and thrive within animal populations, then spread to humans.

As the bacteria responsible for common foodborne infections (such as salmonella, e. coli, and campylobacter) develop resistance to multiple antibiotics, treating once-manageable illnesses has become increasingly difficult. Each year in the United States, foodborne illnesses with antibiotic resistance sicken 430,000 people. Salmonella alone (from food and other sources) accounts for 100,000 cases of multidrug-resistant infections (where specific bacteria are resistant to multiple antibiotics). Antibiotic-resistant infections no longer respond to standard treatment, heightening the risk of longer, more severe infections, hospitalizations, and in some cases, death—especially among vulnerable populations. As antibiotic resistance continues to erode the effectiveness of our most critical medicines, understanding its connection to the food we eat is more urgent than ever.

Antibiotic Use in Industrial Animal Agriculture

Antibiotic resistance is primarily caused by the overuse and misuse of antibiotics, and nowhere are antibiotics more widely abused than in the industrial animal sector; 66% of all antibiotics that are medically important for treating human disease are sold for use in farmed animals.

While such drugs, often administered through feed or water over long periods, are not intended to treat specific infections, they do accelerate growth and mitigate the health risks that arise from the intrinsically unsanitary conditions of high-density confinement systems.

While this practice may help keep animals alive in challenging environments, it comes at a significant cost to public health. When antibiotics are used in low, consistent amounts—known as subtherapeutic dosing—they do not kill all bacteria. Instead, they create selective pressure that allows the most resistant microbes to survive and multiply. Over time, these resistant bacteria come to dominate the population, rendering common antibiotics ineffective. Even more concerning is that many of these bacteria can share their resistance traits with other bacteria by passing along small pieces of genetic material. This means that antibiotic resistance can spread not just among similar bacteria, but also among completely different types, making the problem even harder to control. The result is the rise of multidrug-resistant bacteria, or “superbugs,” that can infect humans and are increasingly difficult—and sometimes impossible—to treat.

Foodborne Illness and the Spread of Antibiotic Resistance

Some of the most common bacteria responsible for foodborne illness—salmonella, campylobacter, and e. coli—have developed dangerous levels of antibiotic resistance, and industrial animal agriculture plays a major role in their spread. These pathogens are frequently found in meat and poultry products and are increasingly resistant to the antibiotics doctors rely on to treat serious infections. Multidrug-resistant subspecies of Salmonella were first documented in the 1950s and have escalated in severity since then. Multidrug-resistant e. coli has increasingly been identified in contaminated meat.  These developments impede our ability to treat severe cases of salmonella and e. coli, as well as additional life-threatening human diseases.

Resistant bacteria don’t just stay on the farm or in the food supply. They spread to people through undercooked meat, contaminated water or soil, person-to-person contact, and even through the air near large-scale animal operations. Farmworkers and nearby communities are especially vulnerable, but the risk doesn’t end there. Animal waste, often used as fertilizer or discharged into nearby fields, can disperse resistant bacteria to farms growing fresh fruits and vegetables, creating another route of exposure—even for consumers who don’t purchase meat or come into contact with farmed animals.

The public health consequences are serious. Infections caused by multidrug-resistant bacteria can lead to longer illnesses, more hospitalizations, and higher death rates—especially among young children, pregnant women, the elderly, and people with weakened immune systems. The CDC and the World Health Organization have issued warnings about the rising threat of antibiotic-resistant foodborne pathogens, calling for urgent action to address this growing crisis.

A Path Forward for Protecting Public Health

Reducing the risk of foodborne illness, curbing the overuse of antibiotics, and improving animal welfare go hand-in-hand. Subtherapeutic use of antibiotics breeds more pernicious foodborne illnesses and is doubly abusive of animals. It artificially multiplies the animals’ growth rate, and it consigns billions of farmed animals to live in high-density, filthy, disease-ridden, stressful conditions, when, without routine antibiotics, they could only survive in a more humane environment.

Animal farming must be reformed so that antibiotics can be reserved strictly for treating diagnosed infections under veterinary oversight. Better sanitation, more space, improved ventilation, and higher animal welfare standards would lead to lower disease rates and reduce the need for routine antimicrobials. Alternatives such as vaccination programs and breeding animals for greater disease resistance would also help limit reliance on antimicrobial drugs. Strengthening federal policies—such as enforcing stricter limits on medically important drugs and mandating antibiotic use reporting—would help close regulatory loopholes that allow overuse of antibiotics to continue unchecked.

Along with reforming regulations, reducing demand for animal products offers one of the most direct and effective ways to reduce both foodborne illness risk and antibiotic resistance. Plant-based diets, which avoid the use of antibiotics entirely, bypass the public health threats associated with intensive animal agriculture. Even plant-forward diets reduce the risks. Shifts to plant-based and plant-forward diets lower demand for animal products, thus reducing the scale of industrial animal agriculture and lowering the risk of plant foods becoming contaminated.

Ultimately, protecting public health requires transforming how we produce and consume food. By adopting stricter antibiotic regulations, improving farming practices, and embracing plant-based diets, we can curb the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and reduce the risk of foodborne illness at its source.

The food we eat should nourish us, not make us sick. Yet, foodborne illness affects 9.9 million Americans each year. While public attention often focuses on food handling and kitchen hygiene, the deeper cause of these outbreaks lies in the way our food is produced. Industrial animal agriculture—characterized by overcrowded facilities, poor sanitation, and excessive antibiotic use—creates an ideal environment for the spread of dangerous bacteria. These pathogens don’t just contaminate meat, eggs, and dairy; they also make their way into produce fields through animal waste, resulting in foodborne illness outbreaks “caused” by such foods as spinach and romaine lettuce. To truly reduce foodborne illness, we must address the systemic failures of industrial farming and reimagine our food system from the ground up.

Farm Forward recommends several key actions to reduce the threat of foodborne illness to public health:

Change Must Begin at the Root: Animal-Raising Practices

Preventing foodborne illness requires more than better handwashing or improved kitchen hygiene—it demands a fundamental transformation in how animals are raised for food. In industrial animal agriculture, animals are kept in overcrowded, unsanitary environments where pathogens like salmonella, e. coli, and campylobacter can easily spread. These conditions are not accidental; they are byproducts of a system designed to maximize output at minimal cost. As long as animals are confined in high densities with limited ventilation, poor waste management, and constant exposure to stress, outbreaks of foodborne illness will remain an ongoing public health threat.

Prevention of foodborne illnesses must start at the source: on the farm. Improvements in welfare can lead to less disease contamination and transmission, improving food safety. This will require shifting away from confinement-based models of farming and toward systems that prioritize animal health and welfare. Providing animals with more space, cleaner living conditions, and safe feed and water supplies improves animal welfare, reduces the environmental stressors that accelerate disease transmission by suppressing immune systems, and creates a healthier environment overall—one that is far less likely to become a breeding ground for dangerous pathogens. With improved living conditions and overall welfare, the need for antibiotics would decrease, reducing the risk of antibiotic-resistant foodborne bacteria. Additionally, better waste management, such as regular cleaning and proper manure storage, can help prevent the spread of bacteria into surrounding water and soil.

Systemic change in the current system involves policy reforms, from stronger animal welfare standards to improved manure management and tighter regulations on antibiotic use. But addressing these issues alone is not enough. A meaningful shift must also include reducing our reliance on industrial animal agriculture altogether.

Reduce or Eliminate Animal Product Consumption

Transitioning toward plant-based diets is a crucial part of the solution, to lower the demand for meat and dairy that drives high-density, high-risk farming practices. Without reducing the scale of animal production, efforts to prevent foodborne illness will continue to fall short. Effective prevention begins with rethinking the very foundation of how we produce food—starting not just with how animals are raised, but with how often we choose to eat them, if at all.

The most direct way to lower the risk of foodborne illness linked to industrial animal agriculture is to reduce our consumption of meat, eggs, and dairy products. When demand for animal products decreases, fewer animals need to be raised in environments that breed harmful bacteria, like salmonella, e. coli, and campylobacter, lowering the use of antibiotics and reducing the risk of antibiotic resistance. Institutions have found that shifting to plant-based defaults while still offering meat, dairy, and eggs leads to dramatic reductions in consumption of animal products without decreasing diner satisfaction. Consumers can contribute to a safer food supply while supporting public health and animal welfare by shifting to a plant-based diet.

Safeguard Plant-based Agriculture

The foodborne illness contamination associated with fresh produce is often linked to industrial animal agriculture. Because contaminated manure from large-scale farms is frequently used as fertilizer on crop fields, and runoff from factory farms can enter local waterways and irrigation systems, fresh fruits and vegetables can become contaminated with antibiotic-resistant foodborne bacteria. Reducing the scale of animal agriculture and demand for animal products through adoption of plant-forward and plant-based diets diminishes this cross-contamination risk by decreasing manure production and limiting environmental pollution, making fresh produce safer for consumers.

Protecting plant-based foods from contamination also requires a combination of stricter regulations and improved farming practices. One critical step is enforcing rigorous standards for manure handling and composting, so animal waste is properly treated to kill harmful bacteria before it is applied to crop fields. This would help prevent the transfer of pathogens like salmonella, e. coli, and campylobacter from manure to fruits and vegetables. Additionally, regular testing and treatment of irrigation water are essential to stop harmful bacteria from nearby animal operations from contaminating crops. Implementing buffer zones—physical separations between farmed animals and crop fields—can further reduce the risk of airborne or waterborne bacteria spreading from animals to plants. Together, these measures form an important defense system to safeguard plant-based foods and reduce the risk of foodborne illness.

Regulate and Reduce Antibiotic Use in Farmed Animals

Restricting subtherapeutic antibiotic use in farmed animals is critical for combating antibiotic-resistant foodborne illnesses. The overuse and misuse of antibiotics in industrial farming—by regularly administering low doses of antibiotics to animals who are not sick—creates conditions that promote the growth of bacteria resistant to antibiotics. These bacteria can contaminate meat, enter the environment, and spread to crops, ultimately infecting people and making infections harder to treat.

The FDA currently allows voluntary, industry-led practices where antibiotics are administered at low doses that do not treat illness, but promote growth and prevent disease in crowded, unsanitary conditions. This accelerates the development of resistant bacteria, increasing contamination risks and the severity of foodborne illnesses. The FDA must enact and enforce stricter, more consistent standards for antibiotic use, and also increase its veterinary oversight to ensure that antibiotics are used only when medically necessary, following strict, consistent standards.

Transparency is critical: the FDA tracks antibiotic sales but does not monitor actual usage on farms. Mandatory reporting would help identify high-risk practices and improve producer accountability. Ultimately, ending routine subtherapeutic antibiotic use and adopting safer alternatives—such as vaccines, probiotics, and improved sanitation—are essential to addressing the growing public health threat posed by antibiotic-resistant foodborne illnesses.

Conclusion

Foodborne illnesses are not inevitable. They are consequences of choices and practices built into our food system. By shifting dietary habits, protecting plant-based food, reining in antibiotic misuse, and fundamentally changing how animals are raised, we can dismantle a system that is making us sick and fueling the growing antibiotic resistance crisis, and build a healthier, safer food future.

Last month, the Los Angeles Times published a story about a new study that confirmed what many in public health and environmental justice have long suspected: California is the industrial cattle capital of the nation. According to researchers from the University of Michigan and the University of California, Santa Barbara, the state has more cattle feeding operations than any other, concentrated heavily in the Central Valley. Tulare County alone has more feedlots than any other county in America, and if it were a state, it would rank eighth nationally.

The new study, published in Communications Earth & Environment, also quantified an unsurprising and troubling link between high concentrations of industrial animal farms and air pollution: counties with large cattle feeding operations experience significantly higher levels of fine particulate matter (PM₂.₅)—28 percent higher on average than similar areas without them. PM₂.₅ is one of the deadliest forms of air pollution, linked to heart disease, lung cancer, and premature death, often affecting communities that already face economic and healthcare barriers.

Building on that data, Farm Forward estimated the potential mortality burden associated with cattle animal feeding operations (AFOs) in California counties, focusing on the heart of the state’s dairy industry. The results are stark. In Tulare County, home to a dairy industry worth roughly $2.67 billion in milk sales each year, AFO-related PM₂.₅ is linked to an estimated 60 excess deaths annually.1 Using EPA’s standard economic valuation of a statistical life (VSL), those premature deaths should be valued at $337 million, and that’s before adding the victims’ costs of lost wages, hospitalizations, and long-term healthcare.

The pattern repeats across the Valley. In Stanislaus County, the mortality cost associated with cattle feedlot PM₂.₅ exposure is nearly $389 million, accounting for over half of the industry’s gross value. In San Joaquin County, the toll is higher: $569 million in mortality costs against $621 million in sales of milk, roughly a one-to-one ratio. According to our analysis, based on this study, about 144 premature deaths each year in California in just five counties with the highest concentration of AFOs are linked to higher PM₂.₅ emissions from industrial dairy farming.

When the value of lives lost (as measured by VSL) nears, or surpasses, the market value of the milk produced, it forces a hard question: are these operations economically viable when their true costs are counted?2 The dairy AFO model in California is profitable in part because much of its real costs—especially the health burden—has been offloaded onto nearby communities. Though California regulators may treat air pollution from AFOs as a cost-of-doing business, those costs are to a large extent borne by working-class, often uninsured residents residing near industrial dairies.

Why Cattle Feedlots Get a Pass on Air Pollution

The Clean Air Act (CAA) is the United States’ primary tool for regulating harmful air emissions from industrial sources. Under the CAA, coal-fired power plants, oil refineries, and manufacturing facilities are required to monitor and control emissions of dangerous pollutants like PM₂.₅. These industries must install pollution control technologies, undergo regular inspections, and report emissions to federal and state agencies.

But industrial animal operations are treated differently. Despite producing vast amounts of airborne pollution (including PM₂.₅ at concentrations likely to increase mortality), AFOs are exempt from the CAA’s permitting and reporting requirements. This is not because their emissions are benign; rather, it’s a result of decades of political lobbying, industry influence, and the framing of livestock production as “agriculture” rather than “industry.”

This is a clear example of agricultural exceptionalism: the set of special legal carve-outs that shield large-scale animal agriculture from the environmental, labor, and safety regulations that apply to virtually every other sector. As a result, communities living near factory farms bear the health burden of emissions that the EPA does not regulate, while other industries must pay to clean up their pollution. In practical terms, this means that if a factory or power plant emitted the same level of PM₂.₅ as a large dairy feedlot, it could be fined or forced to install costly pollution controls. But the feedlot faces no such repercussions.

Until factory farms are brought under the same legal framework that governs other polluting industries, the cycle will continue: profits for large industrial meat and dairy companies, premature deaths in surrounding communities, and the public footing the bill.

Find out if you live near an industrial animal farm here.

ISSUE BRIEF

Since the beginning of the current H5N1 outbreak in early 2022, the federal government has been bailing out meat and dairy companies for losses related to the virus. These bailouts come in the form of so-called “indemnity payments”—federal funds designed to compensate producers for the value of animals or animal products (e.g., milk) lost due to the epidemic. However, these payments aren’t just acts of emergency relief; they can function as subsidies that prop up a system of industrial animal agriculture, whose core practices are driving the same bird flu crisis these payments are intended to address.

Earlier this year, Farm Forward reported that USDA had made $1.25 billion in indemnity payments to the poultry industry to compensate producers for economic losses from bird deaths, including funds allocated for the “depopulation” (that is, culling) of infected birds (see Farm Forward’s report for an analysis of poultry indemnities). Now, Farm Forward presents new data, gathered through the Freedom of Information Act, that shows a similar pattern of harmful indemnities to farms raising dairy cows affected by bird flu. The extension of indemnity payments to dairy producers reveals how the federal government continues to fail in its bird flu response and prop up the industry’s reckless practices that threaten public health. The FOIA data1 obtained by Farm Forward reveals four key findings:

1. The large-scale dairies most responsible for endangering public health reap the most benefit from taxpayer bailouts.
2. USDA repeatedly bails out the same producers for ongoing outbreaks, with over forty percent of payments going to recipients who received multiple disbursements.
3. By making losses the financial responsibility of the taxpayer and requiring no changes in behavior from operators, the USDA payments incentivize producers to continue their risky practices that exacerbate the outbreak.
4. Federal agencies are neglecting the threat of bird flu and deliberately sidestepping common-sense solutions because of industry pressure.

In July 2024, USDA began to compensate dairy producers for losses associated with the virus.2 The Emergency Assistance for Livestock, Honey Bees, and Farm-Raised Fish Program (ELAP) is a federal program administered by USDA to compensate producers for losses in response to a range of events (e.g., disease outbreaks, adverse weather, or feed shortages) that impact livestock, honeybee colonies, and farm-raised fish. In response to the growing impact of bird flu on U.S. dairy herds, USDA expanded ELAP eligibility to include dairy producers affected by the virus. This move allowed dairies to access federal compensation for losses linked to infection, such as decreased milk production and the costs of testing and containment.3 The original intention of the ELAP program is a good one; it is reasonable to protect farmers from extreme weather and disasters outside of their control.

Bird flu, however, is not an act of God—it is often the direct result of routine practices in industrial animal farming operations, whose crowded, filthy, cramped conditions create and exacerbate disease outbreaks.4 Unlike a corn or soybean farmer, who can’t meaningfully change their farming practices in ways that would reduce the risk of future extreme weather events, animal farming operations can and should make changes to reduce future risk of pandemic diseases. Common sense policy for animal operations indemnity payments should be to a) encourage producers to test and report outbreaks, and b) create incentives for producers to change practices in ways that will reduce the spread of the disease (e.g., lowering animal density).

As of January 2025, USDA has distributed over $80 million through ELAP to assist dairy producers, including large-scale producers, in covering losses from H5N1-related milk production declines.5 Despite tens of millions in taxpayer bailouts for these dairy companies, there’s little sign that such operations or the animal farming industry as a whole are making progress to improve their farming practices in ways that would reduce the risk of the virus spreading.6

The bailouts from the ELAP program are just one part of the ongoing failure of both the Democratic and Republican parties to respond to the bird flu outbreak robustly. In April 2025, the FDA suspended its testing program for milk, which would improve bird flu testing and milk safety. The Trump administration also made sweeping cuts to an already limited staff responsible for testing, tracking, and controlling the virus;7 canceled plans for an H5N1 poultry vaccine;8 and cut funding for the development of a human H5N1 vaccine.9 Taken together, our findings highlight the repeated failures of the federal government to contain the H5N1 outbreak and protect public health.

1. The large-scale dairies most responsible for endangering public health reap the most benefit from taxpayer bailouts.

Our review of FOIA payment data indicated that large-scale dairies in major dairy-industry areas like Tulare County and Kings County in California (as well as Weld County in Colorado) received some of the largest payments, with many receiving nearly $1 million. While operations with more animals will have greater losses than a smaller operation with fewer, and therefore will have more losses and receive higher payments, this approach reflects the business-as-usual approach of subsidizing large-scale farms for externalities they themselves create and exacerbate. Many of these operations use large freestall barns, typified by high-confinement conditions with limited outdoor access, all of which require massive cesspools of manure, creating the perfect breeding grounds for disease.10

The top three individual payment recipients are all large-scale industrial dairies, confirmed through analyzing satellite imagery (see Appendix):

• Prado Dairy LLC (CO) – $1,545,189
• Williams Family Dairy LLC (CA) – $998,864
• Meadowvale Dairy LLC (IA) – $914,849

The size of these payments is notable not only because they represent large expenditures of taxpayer dollars to industrial producers but also because ELAP eligibility for milk losses states that “a person or legal entity with an AGI (as defined in 7 CFR Part 1400) that exceeds $900,000 will not be eligible to receive ELAP payments.”11 The payments that these companies received for milk losses exceed the maximum adjusted gross income allowed, suggesting that if, in fact, producers like these operate below the $900,000 threshold, they may have been compensated in total for more than they make in a given year.12

In California specifically, our analysis of FOIA records indicates that roughly three-fourths of payments went to large-scale dairy operations.13 This is reflective of the broader trend of federal subsidies, tax credits, and incentive programs primarily benefiting large-scale animal operations over smaller and more sustainable ones.14 It is precisely trends like these that compelled former representative Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) to propose the federal Food and Farm Act, which “would redirect billions of dollars away from subsidies for commodity farms towards programs that support small farmers, climate-friendly agriculture and increasing healthy food access [emphasis added].”15 And yet, despite efforts at reforms like this one, the federal government instead doubles down on subsidizing and incentivizing those industrial producers that do the most harm.

2. USDA repeatedly bails out the same producers for ongoing outbreaks, with over forty percent of payments going to recipients who received multiple disbursements. USDA has required no change in behavior and issued no penalties on dairies despite the repeated problems.

As is the case with payments to poultry companies that have had bird flu outbreaks and bailouts, many large-scale dairies have received multiple payments, which suggests they have received taxpayer dollars for repeat or ongoing outbreaks. Per our analysis of outlays to dairy companies, 43 percent of payments went to recipients who received multiple disbursements,16 some of which received as many as five separate payments from USDA in a six-month period. This included, but was not limited to, Meadowvale Dairy LLC, Wolf Creek Dairy LLC, Sierra View Dairy, 4K Dairy Family Partnership, and Parreira-Gaspar Dairy, which collectively received nearly $6 million in payments. This suggests a pattern: industrial dairies that received payments (that were very likely related to bird flu17) engage in practices that make losses either predictable or more probable and are the very operations that reap the most economic benefit from taxpayer dollars.18 We expect that these trends have continued into 2025.19

3. By making losses the financial responsibility of the taxpayer and requiring no changes in behavior from operators, the USDA payments continue to incentivize producers to continue their risky practices that exacerbate the outbreak.

Federal regulators have failed on multiple fronts to control the spread of bird flu, and the current system of USDA indemnities entrenches these failures.20 USDA compensation programs pay producers for disease losses, but fail to require the changes to farming practices that could reduce future disease risks.21 This allows these producers to privatize their profits but make their losses a public taxpayer responsibility, enabling the moral hazard associated with managing their herds irresponsibly in a way that encourages the risk of outbreaks. USDA indemnity allocation does not address the fundamental risks associated with disease spread, such as high-density housing of animals, unsanitary conditions, and speed of production that compromises the implementation of proper safety protocols.22 Although the CDC recommends that dairy and poultry workers wear personal protective equipment (PPE) when in contact with poultry and dairy cows,23 there is no mandate to do so in order to receive federal funds. Without meaningful biosecurity requirements attached to indemnity payments, producers are disincentivized to implement more responsible farming practices, increasing risk and endangering public health.

4. Federal agencies are neglecting the threat of bird flu and deliberately sidestepping common-sense solutions because of industry pressure.

Along with propping up a risky system with bailouts, the government is hampering the efforts that would effectively track and contain the virus. Since January 2025, crucial federal programs related to detecting and containing bird flu have seen major budget and staff cuts. Mass layoffs affected the already small staff responsible for responding to animal disease outbreaks at the USDA’s National Animal Health Laboratory Network,24 and top veterinarians in the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine were fired.25 Testing of animals and humans is a cornerstone of effective disease response. However, federal policy related to testing and tracking means that the scale of the outbreak is unknown. In April 2025, the FDA suspended a major bird flu testing initiative for milk and cheese, severely limiting the ability of farmers, public health officials, and the public to know even basic details about the ongoing spread of the disease.26 Critically important testing for farmworkers in dairy and poultry operations has been severely limited, and farmworkers (who typically lack health insurance or paid sick leave) are disinclined to seek testing when they are ill, especially with the severe risks posed to many workers in the Trump Administration’s aggressive crackdown on immigration.27 Without adequate testing, tracking, and government resources allocated to disease management, the virus has been allowed to spread unchecked.

The federal government has put public health at further risk by hampering the development of vaccines for animals and humans that would be essential in containing the outbreak. Most recently, the Department of Human Services (HHS) terminated a more than $700 million grant to Moderna for the development of a human bird flu vaccine.28 After a refusal to pursue a poultry vaccine due to the potential impacts on the export market, USDA finally announced in June 2025 that it will consider a plan to explore the viability of such a vaccine; however, applications for federal grants dedicated to H5N1 poultry vaccines will not be awarded until fall of 2025, delaying their development and pushing out their distribution indefinitely.29  Similarly, early research on a vaccine for dairy cows has shown some promise, but “political headwinds” at the federal and state levels threaten their viability.30 Without vaccines, we lack essential weapons in the battle against the next human pandemic.

Conclusion

The combined failures of the federal government in responding to the H5N1 outbreak are only exacerbated by the current indemnification system. Ultimately, compensating losses due to disasters or illness is not intrinsically bad policy. However, continuing to subsidize a model of agriculture (i.e., industrial, high-confinement) that creates the conditions for disease outbreak, refusing to require meaningful disease containment measures (e.g., biosecurity, testing, vaccines), or leveraging taxpayer funds to incentivize safer, healthier farming practices amounts to reckless endangerment of public health paid for with taxpayer funds.

The dynamic that has emerged across the government’s response to bird flu is a troubling, though largely unsurprising, pattern: the industrial animal sector drives disease risk through intensive production, yet it also secures public funding to shield itself from the financial consequences of such production methods. There’s no silver bullet that will eliminate pandemic risk, but rethinking the way the current methods of farming intensify disease outbreaks—such as by attaching biosecurity requirements and better farming practices to bailouts, and leveraging risk-based insurance programs for indemnity payments—is essential for preventing the growing risk of a human H5N1 pandemic.

Methods

A spreadsheet was received from USDA detailing all payments made through the ELAP program in 2024. There were nearly 20,000 entries, most of which were records that were likely not related to bird flu. The dataset was limited in its specificity and clarity, so the entries were filtered to only payment recipients with “dairy” in the name and, therefore, were very likely to represent dairy companies. However, this means that there were almost certainly some payments that went to dairy companies that were not captured by our analysis. Further, per USDA, the dataset “may or may not be for reduced milk production as the data is not available in that format.” Although the nature of the available data makes it impossible to verify precisely which payments went to H5N1 indemnities, we do know that after USDA opened ELAP to bird flu compensations, payouts to dairy companies spiked by approximately 900 percent, indicating that substantial taxpayer funds have gone to bailouts for bird flu.

Appendix

Satellite Image of Prado Dairy LLC in Weld County, Colorado, the operation that received the most in a single payment: over $1,500,000 per the dataset received from USDA. Image courtesy of Google Maps.

Satellite Image of Williams Family Dairy LLC in Tulare County, California, an operation with many thousands of animals that received a nearly $1,000,000 in payment per the dataset received from USDA.

Satellite Image of Meadowvale Dairy LLC in Sioux County, Iowa, the recipient that received the most: over $1,800,000 in payments per the dataset received from USDA. Image courtesy of Google Maps.

Image: A calf at Alexandre Family Farm, isolated in a plastic hutch, face caked with muck, standing on a floor covered by dirty slurry.

Government finds Alexandre abuses animals

A USDA investigation has validated Farm Forward allegations against Alexandre Family Farm, confirming violations of organic and animal welfare standards. USDA’s certifier moved to suspend Alexandre’s organic certification and placed the company under heightened oversight. Farm Forward obtained the USDA’s final report through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, and it confirms abuses and regulatory violations that Alexandre Family Farm had long denied—until the agency’s investigation and inspection records left them no choice but to admit wrongdoing.

Legal Case Moves Forward

In a separate development, one of the two current lawsuits against Alexandre cleared its first legal hurdle on Friday when a Humboldt County Superior Court judge ruled to allow a cruelty lawsuit to proceed against Alexandre.

This case marks an important milestone: the first time that an animal cruelty statute in California has successfully been used to litigate the treatment of farmed animals, which has historically been used to protect companion animals. “This common-sense ruling demonstrates that the days of sweeping abuses of farmed animals under the rug are over,” says Legal Impact for Chickens President Alene Anello. “The cows held by Alexandre Family Farm deserve to have their agonizing stories told in court, and they are one giant step closer to that becoming a reality.”

Alexandre’s Denials

Before we received the results of USDA’s National Organic Program (NOP) investigation, Alexandre had consistently denied any wrongdoing—offering public statements that ranged from deceptive to outright lies. On April 12, 2024, Lost Coast Outpost, a news site in Humboldt County, California, posted a response from Alexandre to Farm Forward’s investigative report and the article in The Atlantic about our allegations of Alexandre’s systematic abuse and cruelty to cows. Alexandre claimed of our report that “many of the allegations are either totally false or fabricated half-truths.”1 The company assured the public that it is

guided by a deep care for our animals as well as protocols established by experts in the treatment of farm animals.  Our adherence to these animal welfare standards is backed up by hundreds of pages of inspection reports from independent organizations that have conducted regular as well as random inspections on our farm over the years.2

The Truth Comes Out

However, when Alexandre responded to our allegations, not to us, or to the public, but to NOP in direct communications between the company and the agency, Alexandre admitted the truth of many of Farm Forward’s allegations. Alexandre confirmed the following:

• Employees improperly moved cows with hip clamps.3
• Animals were inappropriately horn-tipped [cutting off too much of the horn without pain management].4
• An individual cut the teat off an animal with mastitis.5
• Diesel fuel was used on animals for fly control.6
• Thirty cows died or were euthanized when there was an equipment breakdown, staff were unavailable, and animals were held in an area that typically did not hold animals.7
• A nonambulatory cow left without care for two weeks was “likely” on Alexandre’s property.8
• Cows with “cancer eye” were sold at auction, rather than being euthanized on the farm.9

In its final report, the NOP concluded that “Some of the allegations were substantiated by the investigation process and some were not substantiated.”10 It’s unsurprising that some of the allegations were unsubstantiated, as some had occurred years prior and likely left no evidence at this point—except for video footage, photographs, and whistleblower testimony in our possession, which NOP never asked us to access, despite our offer to speak with them, which went unanswered.

Nonetheless, in addition to the allegations Alexandre acknowledged, NOP substantiated many other instances of animal abuse, neglect, and mistreatment by Alexandre, including:

• Animals had severe hoof rot and inadequate hoof management.11
• Calves did not have adequate space in their “hutches,” and had both dried manure on their bodies and wet bedding.12
• Animals deemed unfit for transport were transported to auction or sale.13
• Calf treatment records were not documented,14 and inspectors found several calves with scours [diarrhea] and pink eye.15
• Hoof baths [a standard method to prevent hoof rot and other infections] were not in use.16
• An eye patch was not removed from a cow after treatment was complete.17
• Algae was found in water troughs.18
• Animals were without feed and some animals died from trampling “due to hunger.”19

Little Truth, Few Consequences from Certifiers

The NOP concluded: “Due to systemic failures found at Alexandre, they received a Combined Notice of Noncompliance and Proposed Suspension from their certifier, CCOF [emphasis added].”20 However, rather than follow through on suspending the company’s Organic certification in response to its egregious violations, “Alexandre entered into a Settlement Agreement with CCOF and is receiving additional oversight and monitoring for two years.”21 This additional oversight consists primarily of “one unannounced inspection per year” and quarterly submission of paperwork.22

This was not the first time that Alexandre was under scrutiny by NOP for animal welfare violations. During the most recent NOP investigation, the agency “found a related investigation … against the same operation for the same issues.” In that case, “The investigation was closed on September 21, 2023 with the statement ‘Allegations were not substantiated.’”23 It is unclear why NOP’s 2023 investigation failed to substantiate allegations that NOP now acknowledges as accurate, given that Alexandre’s abusive treatment of cows has been an ongoing issue dating back to at least 2018.

While Alexandre now appears to be the subject of increased monitoring, this case highlights the systematic failure of certification programs to ensure compliance with organic and animal welfare standards. Although Alexandre has been exposed for its egregious practices, this is not a case of one bad actor. For example, as part of the investigation, Alexandre supplied the NOP with the past results of the company’s certification inspections. During the period in question, Alexandre passed inspections by multiple certification programs, including the California Department of Food and Agriculture, Certified Humane, the National Dairy FARM Program, Organic Trust Plus, and Validus.24 None of these programs identified animal welfare concerns that rose to the level of an inspection failure or noncompliance finding, allowing Alexandre to continue its mistreatment of cows, unchecked.

Future Outlook

The NOP report states that Alexandre was reinspected following the investigation, and no evidence of continued violations was found.25 However, the fact that Alexandre’s infractions occurred over years, and Alexandre lied to conceal them once they were publicly reported, does not instill confidence that the company will refrain from abusive and neglectful treatment in the long term, especially after the period of monitoring and oversight concludes. Furthermore, certifiers are unable to uphold their own standards or ensure good animal welfare—evidenced by the fact that Alexandre passed inspections by numerous certification programs during a period when many egregious practices were occurring.

The systemic failures of Alexandre and its certifiers illustrate the problems endemic to the dairy industry, where even so-called humane farms abuse animals and treat them cruelly, and get away with it due to a lack of adequate oversight and accountability. Consumers who purchase milk from companies like Alexandre, thinking they are supporting good animal welfare, are being deceived while animals continue to suffer.

More to Come

For more of what we’ve learned since our initial investigation—about Alexandre, the failures of law enforcement, retailers, regulators, and certifiers to uphold animal welfare standards, and the implications for consumers—stay tuned for our upcoming issue brief on all of this and more.

Special thanks to Katie Gillespie, VP of Research and Strategy at Farm Forward, for her substantial contributions to this post.

As trade tensions rise and tariffs become central in negotiations, American meat exports are increasingly in the news. But while tariffs may be headline-grabbing, they can distract from a deeper issue: many countries simply don’t want U.S. meat because of how it’s produced.

Nations like those in the European Union and Australia have placed restrictions on imports of American beef, pork, and poultry. This isn’t to hurt U.S. trade, but instead the result of serious (and legitimate) concerns over animal welfare, food safety, and the widespread use of drugs in the food supply.

What Are Tariffs?

Tariffs are taxes on imports that are often used to protect domestic industries or as leverage for trade deals. A 10 percent tariff on imported pork, for example, could raise the price of U.S. pork by (at least) as much.

Often, people think of tariffs as being for building materials like lumber and steel or more advanced hardware like semiconductors. However, food products, including meat and dairy, also have a history of having tariffs placed on them. In fact, farmers have been bailed out by the federal government in the past precisely because of the economic impact of tariffs. While tariffs do affect the global meat trade, they don’t fully explain the resistance to American meat abroad. Many countries object not just to the price of American meat but to how it’s made.

Drugs in the Meat Supply

One of the most contentious issues in U.S. meat exports is the routine use of growth-promoting drugs and antibiotics in factory farming. Consider ractopamine, a feed additive given to pigs and cows to promote muscle growth. This substance is banned in over 160 countries, including those in the EU, China, and Russia, due to concerns over human health and animal welfare. Yet it’s still permitted in the U.S., where it’s widely used in industrial hog and cattle operations.

Similarly, monensin, another common drug used in American beef production, is administered to prevent disease and increase weight gain, especially important in overcrowded, unsanitary factory farm conditions.

The EU has long imposed bans on U.S. beef treated with growth promoters, and it has added restrictions on poultry imports due to unhygienic methods and the overuse of chemical rinses to kill bacteria (practices that are heavily restricted in Europe).

The Meat System Needs Reform

Rather than focusing solely on trade policy, the U.S. should look inward. Citizens around the world are demanding higher animal welfare standards, transparency, and a shift away from routine drug use in meat production. If the U.S. wants to increase meat exports and compete in the global market, the solution isn’t mere trade pressure. It’s reforming the factory farming system itself: less confinement, more genetically healthy animals, and a meaningful commitment to public health.

Whole Foods is knowingly deceiving consumers by selling meat raised with antibiotics under their “no antibiotics, ever” promise. An April 4th filing in a lawsuit against Whole Foods reveals that, based on USDA sample testing of “Raised Without Antibiotics” (RWA) beef, at least 13 of 27 (nearly half) of the establishments that tested positive for antibiotics supplied beef to  Whole Foods.1 As the company has continued to engage in false advertising of its beef products, it has profited significantly on RWA beef sales. For instance, in April 2025, the company was charging 32 percent more per pound for the same cut of conventional beef from a traditional retailer.2

In 2022, a consumer class action lawsuit was filed against Whole Foods for false marketing of meat claiming to be Raised Without Antibiotics (RWA).3 Whole Foods’ company-wide standard for meat is “no antibiotics, ever,” a slogan that appears in their stores and in online marketing materials. However, testing commissioned by Farm Forward in 2022 found that meat from Whole Foods, marketed under this promise, contained numerous drugs, including an antibiotic.

“Farm Forward’s findings were bolstered by a peer-reviewed study published in Science which presents empirical evidence that a significant percentage—up to 22 percent—of cattle within the Animal Welfare Certified program, which is used by Whole Foods, have come from feedyards where testing suggests antibiotics were administered routinely.”4

When confronted with the results of this testing, which proved the company’s marketing claims were false, and even after the lawsuit was filed, Whole Foods continued to market claims that all of the meat sold in their stores is raised with “no antibiotics, ever.”

The sheer number of Whole Foods suppliers selling RWA beef that is actually raised with antibiotics revealed by the USDA testing shows that this is not an isolated incidence of mislabeled beef, but rather a systematic failing of Whole Foods to ensure that the meat the company sells is truthfully labeled and marketed.

As a premier antibiotic-free meat retailer, Whole Foods has done nothing to substantiate their marketing claims about RWA. They have shown willful ignorance about the systematic problem of antibiotics in RWA meat supply chains. Drugs and antibiotics are commonly used to prop up animals who are raised in crowded cramped conditions that routinely cause illness and the industry is subsequently incentivized to misuse these drugs. Whole Foods is profiting from this misuse and misleading the public about antibiotics use in the products they sell. These profits are substantial. In April 2025, Whole Foods was selling filet mignon beef steak for $36.99 per pound, while a traditional retailer priced the same cut of beef at $27.99 per pound.5  The company’s false marketing has led to the widespread deception of consumers who are paying a premium for meat they’ve been made to believe is antibiotic-free.

In a time when the changing climate demands that we bend the curve away from large-scale factory farming, the federal government is heavily investing in a scheme that does little to address the root causes of environmental harm and can even strengthen industrial animal farming: Factory Farm Gas (FFG).

FFG, marketed as “renewable natural gas,” has enjoyed millions of dollars of government subsidies and incentive programs in recent years.

However, to double down on FFG is to double down on a strategy that perpetuates the very system it claims to mitigate—massively confined, industrial animal farming.

Our new reports, “Gaslit by Biogas: Big Ag’s Reverse Robin Hood Effect” and “The ‘Biogas’ Plot: Fueling Factory Farms in the Midwest,” detail this phenomenon and were recently cited in a powerful Vox piece.

What Is Factory Farm Gas?

FFG is gas captured from the massive cesspools of waste generated by concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs)—-factory farms. These operations are touted by industry as exciting renewable energy sources and as a plausible replacement for fossil fuels. They use devices called anaerobic digesters to capture methane gas from cesspools and process the waste into “biogas.” After further refinement, the gas is used to generate electricity and heat.

We don’t deny the basic fact that anaerobic digesters capture methane, nor do we deny the urgency of reducing methane pollution. The problem is that FFG subsidies promote the entrenchment and expansion of industrial animal agriculture while doing nothing to address one of the most significant methane emissions from animals—enteric fermentation.

Despite its greenwashed veneer, FFG doesn’t meaningfully address the harms of factory farming; instead, it obfuscates the pollution problem while funneling public money to some of the worst offenders in industrial agriculture.

Subsidies for Factory Farm Interests

Federal and state subsidies and incentives for FFG have exploded in recent years. In 2024, we received government data via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. Analysis revealed that the 2023 federal value funneled to FFG exceeded $150 million, including grants, low-interest loans, and tax incentives under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). In 2023, programs like the USDA’s Rural Energy for America Program (REAP), which includes funding for truly necessary programs like on-farm wind and solar, saw an over 2,600 percent year-over-year increase in biogas-related grants after the IRA’s passage.Unsurprisingly, private investment is surging alongside these subsidies. FFG companies are cashing in on tax credits and government-backed loans, projecting tens of millions of dollars in benefits in the coming years.

A System by and for the Biggest Polluters

The nature of FFG collection means that some of the worst CAFO practices—like mass animal confinement and manure cesspools—are necessary to make such operations viable. Accordingly, subsidies for FFG disproportionately benefit the largest and most environmentally destructive factory farms. For example:

• Our analysis of three years of state grants shows that dairy digester projects funded by the state of California were “fed” by an average of ~7,500 cows.
• Similarly, in a national dataset, FFG operations “fed” by pig manure reported operations involving between 14,000 and nearly 80,000 animals.

These subsidies not only support the status quo but may actively encourage the expansion of CAFOs and potentially drive out small, independent pasture-based farmers. This “reverse Robin Hood effect” of FFG means public funds are being diverted to the wealthiest agricultural corporations and interests.

Doubling Down on Subsidizing CAFOs

The federal government is doubling down on public incentives for FFG despite major critiques from legislators. In 2024, for example, a coalition of 15 members of Congress sent a letter to then Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack expressing concern over the USDA’s inclusion of FFG in climate-related programs. Their concerns were clear: Incentivizing FFG risks consolidating the agricultural sector and contradicting climate goals. Secretary Vilsack’s response—which Farm Forward received via FOIA request—failed to meaningfully address these concerns while reaffirming a commitment to using manure digesters. Given his past role as a lobbyist for the dairy industry, Vilsack’s support for these subsidies is hardly surprising.

Advocating For Smaller-Scale Farmers Instead

In recent weeks, many farmers, including smaller-scale farmers, have reported that climate funding has been paused following a presidential executive order. Essential initiatives like on-farm solar, which can help smaller farms be more sustainable and offset electricity costs, are up in the air.

Unlike large agribusinesses that can absorb financial setbacks, these farmers operate on much thinner margins, making the sudden funding halt a potential death knell for pro-climate initiatives. Struggling smaller-scale and local farmers would be left holding the bag for the major financial burdens of previously subsidized climate programs they cannot afford on their own.

The new administration has expressed interest in addressing the lack of healthfulness in the food system via its push to “Make America Healthy Again.” One good way to start would be to ensure that promised payments get to smaller-scale farmers. Why? To support ways of raising animals for food far better for our public health than factory farming’s outsized contributions to pollution, the antibiotic resistance crisis, and pandemic risk.

Conclusion

Climate interventions that entrench and expand industrial animal agriculture won’t cut it. Instead of facilitating well over a billion dollars into factory farm interests, we should:

• Invest in plant-based food systems that reduce reliance on industrial animal farming.
• Push for legislation like the Farm System Reform Act to phase out massive, confined factory farming and support independent farmers transitioning to sustainable practices.

FFG is not the climate solution it claims to be. Perhaps there’s a world where certain iterations of biogas could be a meaningful part of a serious climate strategy—it’s not inconceivable. Our concern is not with the notion of using waste for heat and electricity but with how we see it manifesting: massive subsidies for large-scale agricultural polluters, little oversight, factory farm expansion, and industrial profiteering.

By propping up factory farming, the government is perpetuating a system that threatens public health, rural communities, animal welfare, and the very climate it purports to protect. It’s time to redirect these subsidies toward a more humane and sustainable food system.

For more details, see our recent reports and the Vox article:

Gaslit by Biogas: Big Ag’s Reverse Robin Hood Effect

Biogas’ Plot: Fueling Factory Farms in the Midwest

Big Oil and Big Ag are teaming up to turn cow poop into energy — and profits. The math doesn’t add up

American consumers have seen unprecedented increases in the cost of animal products over the past few years, with egg prices having more than doubled in the past eighteen months and combined meat, poultry, fish, and egg prices reaching a historic high. While inflation has impacted all food categories, two significant factors have disproportionately driven up animal product prices: the devastating impact of avian influenza, and systematic price manipulation by major meat producers. These price increases reveal deeper issues within our industrial food system and its vulnerability to both natural and human-caused disruptions.

The Impact of Avian Influenza

Egg Prices Hitting Record Highs

The ongoing avian influenza (H5N1) outbreak has become the deadliest bird flu in U.S. history, leading to the culling of 150 million poultry in the U.S. since early 2022—an average of 138,000 domestic birds slaughtered and discarded every day.

This strain of bird flu, designated a “highly pathogenic avian influenza” or HPAI, spreads rapidly through industrial farming operations where tens of thousands of birds are crowded together in close quarters, providing a perfect petri dish for multiplying the infection. The genetic similarity of commercial broiler chickens amplifies their vulnerability to the illness. Thanks to the global monopoly that just two companies—Aviagen and Cobb-Vantress—hold over broiler chicken breeds, and generations of selective breeding to increase productivity, the chickens on farms largely lack genetic diversity, and their immune systems are often weaker than those of heritage breeds. So when even one bird tests positive, the entire flock of hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands must be destroyed to prevent further spread.

Every state in the union has now been affected by outbreaks of the latest highly infectious bird flu in commercial flocks. The mass culling of laying hens has severely disrupted egg production, causing prices to spike dramatically. Grocery stores and restaurants have seen their egg costs rise from $2.25 per dozen last fall to a record $6 or $7 today, with organic and specialty eggs reaching even higher prices.

Grocery stores use eggs as “loss leaders,” discounting egg prices in order to attract customers who then spend more on other products with higher profit margins. So rising egg costs have hit consumers less hard than grocers. But consumers have definitely noticed the price hike; according to the Consumer Price Index, between December 2023 and December 2024 retail egg prices rose a whopping 65 percent.

Some grocery stores have limited the number of cartons of eggs that their customers can purchase on a given day due to egg shortages. At the same time, the loss of broiler chickens as a result of avian influenza has increased chicken meat prices, while the culling of turkeys has led to both shortages and price increases during winter holiday seasons.

The implications go beyond higher prices for retail eggs and poultry. Restaurants, manufacturers, and ingredient producers that have to pay higher egg prices pass their increased costs onto consumers. And it’s not just economics at stake. Public health experts have been ringing alarm bells about the potential for this deadly avian influenza strain, which has already jumped from animals to people, to begin to spread person-to-person, leading to the next global pandemic.

How does bird flu spread?

Poultry who have been infected with avian flu shed the virus in their feces, nasal secretions, and saliva. Healthy birds pick up the virus when they come into contact with these substances. The virus can also be spread via surfaces that an infected animal has come into contact with.

Unfortunately, birds are not the only species at risk of contracting avian influenza. In just the United States, there have been 490 confirmed cases of the disease in nonhuman mammals, including 80 domestic cats, in 35+ U.S. states. Among the wildlife victims are mountain lions in California, red foxes in Colorado, and harbor seals in Maine.

The disease can also infect people. While in 2022, there was just one human case in this country, there have been a confirmed 67 human cases of bird flu in the U.S. since 2024, leading to the first human death from bird flu in the U.S., in 2025. This is a rapid increase in human cases, given that only about 954 cases have been reported to the World Health Organization worldwide since 2003. In that time period, half (49 percent) of avian influenza infections in humans proved fatal.

The risk of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI)  leading to the next human pandemic is so significant that in early 2025, the US Department of Health and Human Services announced awarding $590 million to Moderna to develop vaccines against H5N1, H7N9, and up to four other subtypes of HPAI. Unfortunately, even vaccines that are well matched to strains of HPAI currently circulating in poultry may become far less effective as soon as these influenza viruses mutate—and influenza viruses are notorious for mutating rapidly.

How can the further spread of bird flu be prevented?

While some of the 145 million poultry who have died in the U.S. due to bird flu died of the H5N1 virus itself, most were apparently healthy birds who were culled due to a concern that they may have been exposed to the virus and could pass it on to people, poultry, or other animals.

The industry kills birds who may have been exposed whether they’re showing signs of disease or not, as a means of preventing the spread of this deadly disease. Some in the industry have also claimed that killing the birds swiftly, usually within 24 hours, helps to prevent the animal suffering that the illness would likely cause.

However, the ways in which thousands of birds are killed at once have drawn widespread criticism for being cruel. One of the prevalent methods is to cover chickens in a water-based foam. The birds are rendered unable to breathe and die of asphyxiation. An alternative but equally cruel method of killing the birds, and one recommended by the USDA, is to seal off the sheds they live in and pump in carbon dioxide, leading to asphyxiation. If for some reason these two methods don’t work, farmers are advised by the department to use “ventilation shutdown.” The airflow into the barns is shut off, and this causes the temperature inside to rise to fatal levels. Producers kill their birds en masse using one of these three methods because it is more cost effective than slaughtering the birds individually.

While economically advantageous for corporations, slaughtering poultry in these high numbers puts workers at particularly high risk for contracting the virus themselves. For example, the Center for Disease Control reported that working in extreme heat under large fans during a “mass depopulation” event on a Colorado egg farm, in which an entire flock of chickens was asphyxiated by carbon dioxide, made it difficult for workers to keep on their protective equipment, likely contributing to the workers contracting five bird flu infections. This mass slaughter strategy also comes at great cost to taxpayers, since the government provides subsidies to poultry producers after a “depopulation” event.

Farm Forward recommends a far more effective means to prevent the spread of bird flu in the U.S., consisting of three steps taken that can be taken simultaneously. First, we recommend that with public health in mind, consumers eat conscientiously, as few poultry products as possible, ideally none. Actively and seriously reducing demand for poultry products will lead to decreased poultry production. Second, poultry producers must take their own role in public health seriously, and shift away from overcrowded, unsanitary barns of genetically modified birds in favor of pasture-raised heritage poultry. Third, poultry should be vaccinated against bird flu to stop the spread. (The USDA recognizes several licensed vaccines for H5N1 in poultry, but the use of these vaccines has not been authorized for this outbreak.)

The EU, China, Ecuador, and Mexico have embraced poultry vaccination against bird flu, with excellent results. For example, from Autumn 2022 and April 2023 France had reported 315 outbreaks, but from Autumn 2023 to April 2024, it reported just 10 outbreaks. Thanks to systemic vaccination of poultry, some countries have temporarily achieved infection-free conditions before isolated flare-ups have recurred.

However, the U.S. industrial producers of chicken meat appear to be uninterested in vaccinating poultry against bird flu. In 2023, The National Chicken Council told CNN that it opposes vaccination largely because vaccination would reduce profits from the export market. The public needs to pressure the government and industrial producers to take the pandemic risk of H5N1 seriously enough to institute systematic vaccination of chickens raised for meat, chickens raised for eggs, and all other poultry.

There is one sure way to address the virus’s spread through poultry: eliminate industrial poultry farming. While completely doing away with mass-confined poultry farms is the most effective way of stopping bird flu, and much progress could be made toward that goal, a complete, country-wide transition away from industrial poultry farming is unlikely in the near future. Therefore, the industry that persists must reinvent itself by providing far more space for the birds, shifting toward hardier breeds, and vaccinating all poultry. 

The Impact of Bird Flu on Dairy Prices

Partly due to ripple effects from avian influenza, cow dairy prices have also risen significantly. When egg prices spike, some consumers switch to cow dairy products as protein alternatives, increasing demand. Additionally, the cost of feeding dairy cattle has risen due to supply chain disruptions and increased grain prices, further driving up the cost of cows’ milk and dairy products.

Notably, cows are susceptible to the current strain of avian influenza, and in just the 10 months following the first detection in U.S. dairy cows in March 2024, 950 dairy herds in 16 states have been infected. Infected cows often produce significantly less milk.

Although fragments of the virus have been found in pasteurized milk, the pasteurization process neutralizes the virus’s ability to infect humans. However, raw cows’ milk can transmit the virus to people. When the FDA tested 275 raw milk samples from four affected states, it found that 14 percent of the milk samples contained actively infectious virus.

Price Manipulation in the Meat Industry

While bird flu has created genuine supply challenges for eggs, other poultry products, and cows’ milk and dairy products, investigations have revealed that major meat producers have also exploited economic circumstances to inflate prices artificially. Several recent developments highlight this issue:

1. JBS Settlement: In 2022, JBS agreed to pay $52.5 million to settle a price-fixing lawsuit that accused the company of conspiring with other major meat processors to reduce supply and drive up prices. In 2023, JBS agreed to pay an additional $25 million to settle similar price-fixing charges.
2. Tyson Foods, Pilgrim’s Pride, and Mountaire Settlement: These companies, along with ten others, faced multiple lawsuits and investigations for allegedly manipulating chicken prices through coordinated production cuts and information sharing with competitors. In 2023, they agreed to pay over $284 million to settle the lawsuits.
3. A Pattern of Behavior: Several major meat processors had previously faced scrutiny from White House economics advisors for price gouging consumers during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, while increasing their net profit margins by 300 percent.

Why aren’t prices coming down?

Despite the resolution of several price-fixing cases, consumers continue to face high prices for several reasons:

1. Industry Concentration: Just a handful of companies control the majority of meat processing in the United States, limiting competition and maintaining artificially high prices.
2. Ongoing Vulnerability: Due to their overcrowded housing, unsanitary conditions, and genetically uniform animals, industrial farming operations remain particularly susceptible to avian influenza and other disease outbreaks, creating persistent supply chain risks.
3. Corporate Profit Margins: Many major meat producers have maintained higher prices even as their costs have decreased, prioritizing profits over consumer affordability.

The Role of Industry Consolidation

In the United States, four companies (Cargill, Tyson, JBS, and National Beef Packing) control approximately 85% of beef processing, 70% of pork processing, and 54% of chicken processing. This concentration of power allows these companies to:

• Control supply chains
• Influence market prices
• Resist regulatory oversight
• Maintain higher consumer prices even when production costs decrease

Looking Forward: What Can Consumers Expect?

While some relief could come from

• New antitrust enforcement efforts,
• Improved disease prevention measures, and
• Emerging competition from smaller producers,

experts suggest that meaningful price reductions would require

• Stronger antitrust enforcement,
• Greater industry competition, and
• More resilient and distributed food production systems.

The U.S. government’s response to avian influenza has been anaemic, and egg supply issues are likely to be ongoing. Already at a near-record high price as 2025 began, the U.S. Department of Agriculture predicts that egg prices will increase by 20.3 percent by end of 2025.

Conclusion

The current high prices for meat, eggs, and dairy reflect natural challenges, inadequate government responses to bird flu outbreaks, and corporate behavior within our food system. While avian influenza has created genuine supply disruptions, evidence suggests that major meat producers have exploited these circumstances to maintain artificially high prices. These rising costs, combined with concerns about industry consolidation and vulnerability to disease outbreaks, present an opportunity for consumers to reevaluate their food choices.

Many consumers are finding that reducing their consumption of animal products not only helps manage grocery bills but also decreases their exposure to price volatility in the meat and dairy markets. Unsurprisingly, mainstream media is increasingly running stories on alternatives to animal products, such as CNET’s 2025 article “Egg Prices Are Ridiculously High. Try These Alternatives.” For consumers who care about their pocketbooks, it’s significant that plant-based proteins like legumes (beans, lentils, peanuts, etc.), grains, and tofu often cost significantly less per serving than their animal-based counterparts, while providing nutritional advantages. Additionally, these plant-based alternatives aren’t subject to the same supply chain disruptions caused by animal disease outbreaks.

Incorporating more plant-based meals can be both budget-friendly and environmentally conscious. Whether motivated by rising prices, the climate and environment, animal welfare, pandemics prevention, or health considerations, consumers have more ways than ever to reduce their dependence on increasingly expensive animal products while maintaining a nutritious diet.

The race to successfully breed and raise octopuses in captivity to be slaughtered and sold as food has been going on for decades. Would-be octopus farms have repeatedly run into issues, however, ranging from difficulty sourcing food to the octopuses being driven to cannibalism when confined in tightly packed tanks. Despite these obstacles, corporations have pressed on, driven by the increasing popularity of octopus meat. Researchers and advocates point out that octopuses are highly intelligent creatures already recognized as sentient beings in the United Kingdom. Further, it is likely to be impossible to farm them ethically with high welfare standards that provide for their solitary nature and their intellectual abilities, while also maintaining profit margins adequate to sustain a business model.

Are octopuses farmed?

Every year about 350,000 tons of octopuses are caught wild and sold for food. Most of the octopuses are sold to diners in East Asian countries such as Japan and South Korea, though another considerable chunk is also sold to European countries such as Spain and Italy. Currently all of the octopuses consumed are wild-caught, as octopuses are notoriously difficult to keep and are not presently being farmed. Efforts are being made to change that, however, with plans for octopus farms well underway. The move toward farming octopuses is motivated entirely by profit, with various companies identifying the demand for octopus meat and attempting to be the first to successfully create a regular and controlled form of production to meet it. Despite these companies pouring millions of dollars into their startups, a range of problems and difficulties remain.

Should octopuses be farmed?

Octopuses should absolutely not be farmed for several reasons, set out below. Advocates have already urged governments to ban the sale and import of farm-raised octopus due to concern for the cephalopods’ welfare on the farms.

Octopuses are highly intelligent

Those who have had the opportunity to work closely with octopuses can attest to their intelligence. Each one has a unique personality, and recently, researchers discovered that some octopuses use their color changes to signal their intentions.

Making a profit is likely impossible

Researchers have cautioned that making a profit from an octopus farm while also providing for the emotional and mental needs of the octopuses may be impossible, due in large part to the solitary nature of most octopus species.

High-welfare farms are not possible

An octopus production farm is unlikely to be able to provide high welfare for octopuses given the many difficulties associated with simply keeping them alive and unharmed in a captive environment. In addition to the territorialism, aggression, and cannibalism often exhibited by octopuses when crowded into tanks, a veterinary journal notes that the biggest challenges are physical trauma, skin infections, sourcing feed, and raising octopuses in their paralarval stages. When bored or stressed, octopuses often dart around their environment, resulting in trauma and ulcers. After injury, their soft, thin skin is prone to secondary infection from bacterial genuses such as Vibrio, Pseudomonas, and Aeromonas, many of which can infect human beings. Stress can even lead these highly complex creatures to self-traumatize, which unfortunately has been extensively documented in captive octopuses.

Octopuses are sentient beings

The evidence for octopus sentience is overwhelming. Research has demonstrated that they are capable of integrating evidence from various sources and are able to learn from past experiences, among many other markers of intelligence. The U.K. government recognized octopuses as sentient animals following the recommendation of a research team at the London School of Economics that evaluated 300 different studies.1

Why do people farm octopuses?

Despite the greenwashing claims made related to octopus aquaculture—for example, that octopus farms are intended to alleviate the strain on wild populations—the reason that people are seeking to start octopus farms is to make money, to capitalize on the fact that octopuses are increasingly consumed as food items in many places around the world.

How are octopuses farmed?

Octopus farming is still in its tentative stages, but it may be about to explode. Spanish company Nueva Pescanova is the closest to opening an octopus farm, having successfully developed an octopus breeding program following an investment of $74 million. The company spent many months at the research stage to determine how to effectively raise octopuses in farmed conditions, and now plans to keep octopuses in tanks in a 567,000 square foot operation alongside a dock in the Canary Islands. The company claims to be on the verge of launching this aquaculture operation that will eventually produce 3,300 tons of octopuses per year. That’s about one million individual animals they intend produced each year, with 10-15 octopuses sharing every 1.3 cubic yards of tank.

So, octopus farming may be just around the corner. What already happens today is octopus ranching—in which young octopuses are caught from the wild and then kept in tanks until they are old enough to be slaughtered and sold to diners.

Why is octopus farming unethical?

There are several reasons why octopus farming would be unethical. Many of them stem from the inherent cruelty in locking an animal as intelligent and solitary as an octopus in a tank for the purpose of growing meat or reproducing.

Octopus farming is cruel

Many experts believe that having a high welfare octopus farm while making a profit poses insuperable difficulties. Octopuses are highly intelligent; in captivity, octopus well-being requires caretakers to employ a variety of enrichments. Octopuses are solitary animals and frequently grow violent when housed together in tanks or other confined spaces.2 Because the primary driver of modern farming is to make money and produce food on a large scale, octopuses in an aquaculture system are unlikely to be housed separately while also being provided with environments interesting enough to avoid boredom and stress.

Octopuses are intelligent animals

Anyone who has seen the 2020 documentary My Octopus Teacher can attest to the intelligence of octopuses. But the unusual abilities of cephalopods are by no means a new discovery, and are supported by great deal of research. One of the most significant summaries is a report issued by researchers at the London School of Economics who evaluated over 300 individual studies and determined that octopuses should be considered sentient beings. The report made waves and resulted in octopuses, other cephalopods, and decapods being recognized as sentient beings under U.K. law.

Over the years a number of octopuses have caught the public eye and impressed the masses with their intelligence and fortitude. Among them is Inky, an escape artist who was kept at the national aquarium in New Zealand. Inky successfully fled his enclosure and disappeared overnight. The aquarium’s staff believe that Inky broke out of his tank, slithered down a 50-metre drainpipe, and returned to the sea.

Octopuses suffer physically and psychologically

Farming octopuses presents a variety of physical and psychological challenges for the cephalopods. Octopuses are covered in a mucus that protects their skin and allows them to fit into and through small spaces.3 When this layer is damaged, they can develop infections. They are also prone to extreme, unrelenting boredom and stress behaviors if in a bland or unstimulating environment. When they are stressed, they are also likely to self-harm. Finally, they are prone to eating one another when housed collectively, as most species are solitary animals.

Why else is octopus farming bad?

Octopuses are not the only ones that octopus farming stands to negatively impact. Large-scale octopus farming may also deplete fish species (to feed the octopuses), damage local aquatic ecosystems, destroy marine ecosystems, and even drive an increase in pollution. Because octopus farms don’t yet exist, we cannot be sure what impacts they will have. However, we can consider existing aquaculture and the impacts that it is already having on animals and aquatic environments around the world.

Octopus farming will further deplete fish species

Octopuses consume a large amount of food over their lives. Octopuses have at least a 3:1 food conversion ratio, meaning that the weight of fish necessary to sustain one is at least three pounds for every pound an octopus weighs. Feeding farmed octopuses may lead to the further depletion of fish populations in order to feed captive octopus populations, in much the same way that small fish like anchovies risk being overfished to feed farmed salmon.

Possible damaging effects on local aquatic animals

Diseases may be spread from octopus farms and compromise local populations of octopuses and other aquatic animals. This would be unsurprising given the effects of other aquatic farms.

Octopus farming may cause pollution

As with all animal agriculture, there will be byproducts from the farming process. Some of the most prominent pollutants are likely to be nitrogen and phosphorus. Nitrogen pollution causes toxic algal blooms, ocean dead zones, biodiversity loss, and impaired human and animal health. Likewise, phosphorus pollution depletes soils of their richness and leads to eutrophication, degradation of ecosystems and contaminated drinking water.

Octopus farming adds to the destruction of marine ecosystems

Octopus farming may cause destruction to marine ecosystems due not only to pollution, but also to the demand placed on marine species processed into octopus food.

What is the case against other types of octopus farming?

So far, we have outlined several reasons why octopuses should not be farmed for food, but this is not the only kind of octopus farming. Recently, a research facility in Hawaii was shut down due to issues with permitting following an investigation. Though octopuses were not successfully being bred for food there, the facility subjected hundreds of octopuses to fatal breeding experiments, and government records show plans for eventually supplying octopuses to the restaurant industry. The facility was shut down in January 2023 because it lacked the permits necessary to house and care for the wild-caught species of octopus it kept in captivity.

Although the octopus farm characterized itself as a research facility, to support itself the facility would catch wild cephalopods, place them in small tanks, and encourage visitors to touch and interact with them. On top of the criticism the facility has faced for their inhumane treatment of animals and inappropriate permits, advocates have argued that it amounted to little more than a petting zoo—that it captured and confined wild animals and then allowed people to interact with them for money.

Conclusion

The main driving force behind attempts to successfully raise octopuses on farms are the more than 350,000 tons of octopus meat currently being consumed around the world, and the growing popularity of the cephalopods as a food item. This is despite the fact that octopuses are extremely intelligent creatures who have been recognized as sentient beings. Further, experts have concluded that breeding, raising, and keeping octopuses on farms while providing adequately for their physical and psychological needs is impossible, due in large part to their tendency to be aggressive when housed in groups and their high intelligence.

The work to make agriculture more sustainable, humane, and efficient is complex. It requires considering some of our most profound problems, including climate change and an increasing human population. During the last decade, regenerative agriculture has received a lot of attention as a form of farming that promises environmental benefits compared to industrial farming systems. While regenerative agriculture can improve soil quality and soil microbiome, it is far from being a silver bullet for climate change—and has its own drawbacks.

What is regenerative agriculture?

Regenerative agriculture is best thought of as a system of related agricultural practices, rather than a single method. There is no formal, scientific, or regulated definition of the term.

While the World Economic Forum defines regenerative agriculture as “a way of farming that focuses on soil health,” a review of 25 practitioner websites and 229 journal articles found definitions ranging from “a system of farming principles and practices that increases biodiversity, enriches soils, improves watersheds, and enhances ecosystem services,” to “a long-term, holistic design that attempts to grow as much food using as few resources as possible in a way that revitalizes the soil rather than depleting it, while offering a solution to carbon sequestration,” to “a form of enterprise that incorporates a community of people engaged in civil labor to produce and consume the food (and land, landscape and amenity) that they, collectively, decide to grow.”

In our 2020 report on regenerative agriculture, we pointed out that regenerative agriculture was not a monolith but spanned groups concerned primarily with conservation agriculture and others with a more holistic view incorporating ecological farming, animal welfare, and labor rights.

Many practices of regenerative agriculture are not new. Indigenous communities have employed a number of them for centuries. While the science of regenerative farming was studied during the twentieth century, it exploded in popularity after a 2013 TED talk by Allan Savory went viral. In the talk, Savory specifically pointed to cattle systems as a regenerative boon, arguing in part that humans should eat more meat to improve the environment. The talk’s major claims have been described as “unfounded” by scientists and heavily criticized by the Sierra Club. Nonetheless, regenerative agriculture remains a compelling concept and a buzzword for many, selling books and headlining conferences.

Unfortunately, the massive hype behind the farming practice, along with the absence of clear definitions or meaningful regulation, has led to greenwashing and deceptive marketing from some food companies and farms. Not all regenerative farms are alike, however, because not all regenerative practices are alike.

What are the types of regenerative agriculture?

Regenerative agriculture’s varied forms are not clearly defined. Some types of regenerative agriculture can be entirely arable (crop-based), but in general most regenerative practices involve raising animals—especially ruminant animals like cows—in a semi-pastoral system that integrates grazing and reduced tilling to maintain soil fertility.

What are the five principles of regenerative agriculture?

It’s common to sort the principles of regenerative agriculture into a few main points, and these lists can reflect very different priorities, though they agree on many of the basics.

Integrate animals into the farm as much as possible

Ecosystems require balance, and a key part of that balance is the relationship between plant and animal species (though not necessarily farmed animals). When domesticated farmed animals are allowed to roam within a farm, they can benefit the farm by interacting with plant species, for example by spreading seeds through their manure, which also serves as fertilizer. Animals raised in these conditions may have significantly higher animal welfare than animals raised on factory farms, though this outcome isn’t always a priority for regenerative farming’s advocates.

Minimizing soil disturbance benefits the soil and the climate

Regenerative farmers do not till the soil and tend to avoid synthetic fertilizers that can damage long-term soil health. This ensures that the soil remains undisturbed and can maintain its structure and nutrients, creating better quality crops.

Year-round plant coverage prevents soil erosion and increases carbon inputs

Regenerative agriculture farmers avoid dead spots in the year, when the fields are devoid of any plant life. By ensuring that plants are growing year-round, farmers can capture a bit more carbon from the atmosphere and benefit soil health, as well as providing cover that keeps soil in place during wind and rain.

Diversifying crops in space and time supports resilience, productivity, and diversity

Another key principle of regenerative agriculture is to diversify crops. Monocultures, such as a field that grows corn and only corn every single year, can sap the soil of vital nutrients. The growth of monoculture farming occurred in tandem with the demand for crop feed for animals in confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs), but regenerative agriculture prioritizes using a diverse variety of plants in a given field.

Reducing synthetic inputs benefits the soil and the biotic community

Regenerative farmers strive to use a smaller volume of chemical inputs such as pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and chemical fertilizers compared to conventional farmers. Reducing synthetics helps some regenerative farmers achieve an ongoing financial benefit, as they decrease their dependence on recurring purchases of chemicals.

Soil armor

An alternative fifth principle is the idea of “soil armor.” Regenerative farmers place a layer of litter on the soil to protect it. This reduces required inputs, and gives the ecosystem within the soil time and space to grow. This also allows the soil to hold more water and helps prevent erosion.

What are the practices of regenerative agriculture?

While regenerative agriculture is a trendy new topic for many farmers, and thus does not have meaningful regulations or clear definitions, it does have some basic common practices. The National Resource Defense Council interviewed 100 regenerative farmers to learn about some of them. Here is what they found.

No-till or reduced-till techniques

Tilling, especially overtilling, can be detrimental to the health of the soil. Most regenerative farms do not till at all, but some will till when they consider it necessary.

Growing cover crops, double cropping

Double-cropping refers to an agricultural practice where two crops are harvested in one year, usually in two different seasons. Cover cropping is when a farmer adds a crop to soil when it would normally lie barren, either between seasons or in between rows of crops. Both of these practices can reduce erosion, improve soil health, and increase water retention of the soil.

Crop rotation, interseeding, relay planting, and agroforestry

Each of these methods is a way of avoiding plant monocultures.

• Crop rotation: Planting different crops on a single tract of land over time
• Interseeding: Planting cover crops in between rows of crops
• Relay cropping: Growing two or more crops in the same area by planting the second crop after the first is developed
• Agroforestry: Incorporating trees into agriculture

Precision agriculture

Precision agriculture is the science of improving farm yields with technology, sensors, and analytical tools. For example, a farmer may test the acidity of the soil throughout the growing season and make adjustments based on which crop is growing at that time. By maximizing crop output, more food can be grown using the same amount of land.

Managed grazing

Sometimes called “intensive rotational grazing” or “holistic grazing,” regenerative farms manage the grazing of animals by confining them to a small section of pasture called a paddock for a period of time, then moving them to a second paddock, and allowing the pasture in the first paddock to recover while the animals are grazing in the second paddock. Farms might have anywhere from two to thirty or more paddocks. Rotational grazing may improve the soil and plant life as compared to continuous grazing systems.

What are the benefits of regenerative agriculture?

Animal welfare benefits

Typically, animals on regenerative farms have more access to the outdoors where they can express natural behaviors like grazing and have more space per animal. Animals are less likely to be crowded into small and unhygienic pens or barns and more likely to enjoy a more natural environment. This is undeniably a benefit for farmed animals, but it comes with a very significant caveat.

Unfortunately, regenerative agriculture is not synonymous with high animal welfare. Farmers are permitted, under the principles of regenerative agriculture, to practice branding, dehorning, debeaking, and other cruel practices. Animals in all forms of farming systems are still killed when they reach “slaughter age,” usually taking years or decades off of their natural lifespans. And regenerative agriculture can still use genetically engineered animal species, like broiler chickens, who grow so fast they often experience poor health due to their “optimized” bodies.

To quote from our report on farmed animal welfare in the regenerative agriculture movement:

Regenerative farmers and ranchers in particular see themselves as advocates for farmed animals because they provide individual care for animals and choose farm practices that are significantly more labor intensive than industrial agriculture. However, the regenerative movement’s commitment to animal welfare is not universally held or applied, and farmers may accept some amount of suffering as necessary for their economic viability. Sometimes farmers and ranchers make compromises they attribute to structures outside of their control, including access to high welfare genetics, consumers’ unwillingness to pay higher prices, proximity to slaughterhouses with higher welfare technology, etc. 

Regenerative agriculture often is a step forward for animals, but should not be confused with an adequate solution to the problem of animal welfare in agriculture.

What are the problems with regenerative agriculture?

Greenwashing and misdirection

Some regenerative agriculture farms may engage in greenwashing and mislead the public about how sustainable their practices actually are.

For example, the claims of regenerative agriculture to actually sequester more carbon than naturally produced by ruminant animals are not supported by the scientific literature. In a meta-analysis of over 300 studies conducted by Food Climate Research Network (the largest known scientific review of regenerative agriculture), grazing animal systems were found to only offset between 20 and 60 percent of their own emissions, depending on the type of system. Further, soil sequestration will peak after a few decades, meaning that regenerative agriculture’s ability to offset the emissions from ruminant animals is only temporary. This casts doubt on the future of the carbon sequestration in regenerative agriculture.

In fact, the original TED Talk that kickstarted the modern regenerative cattle movement has been criticized by scientists, so much so that TED posted an official update on the speech, acknowledging that the scientific claims in the speech are “complicated” at best and should be viewed in the wider context of research. Given this larger scientific literature, claims of “carbon-neutral” or “carbon-negative” beef should be met with extreme skepticism.

Regenerative advocates also claim that regenerative agriculture can stop or even reverse desertification across the world through holistic grazing practices. However, many global ecosystems evolved without large-hoofed mammals like cows. For example, in a scientific critical analysis of regenerative agricultural claims in the International Journal of Biodiversity, the authors summarize:

Western US ecosystems outside the prairies in which bison occurred are not adapted to the impact of large herds of livestock. Recent changes to these grassland ecosystems result from herbivory by domestic livestock which has altered fire cycles and promoted invasive species at the expense of native vegetation. 

More environmentally friendly than a switch from industrial animal farming to regenerative animal farming—both in terms of land use and carbon sequestration—would be a switch to entirely plant-based food systems (or those that include cultured meat products).1 If regenerative agriculture has a place in mitigating climate change, it must go hand-in-hand with a global reduction in meat consumption, thanks to the lower density of regenerative animal farming as well as the need to further reduce emissions. So despite regenerative agriculture’s benefits for soil, it cannot solve agriculture’s contributions to climate change as is sometimes claimed.

Humanewashing

Farm Forward’s 2024 investigation of the nation’s premiere regenerative organic dairy, Alexandre Family Farm, demonstrates that the regenerative labels can function not only as forms of greenwashing, but also humanewashing. Despite the positive animal welfare associations under the halo of the “regenerative” label, and despite Alexandre’s awards, accolades, celebrity endorsements, and two official regenerative certifications, for years this regenerative mega-dairy routinely and systemically abused cows, engaged various forms of cruelty to animals, and littered its landscape with decomposing bodies in ways that may have violated state water protection regulations. For more details, see our investigative report on Alexandre, Dairy Deception, or its accompanying article in The Atlantic.

Pandemic risk

All forms of animal agriculture can increase the chances of pandemics, including regenerative agriculture. Because holistic grazing demands high land use, it often encroaches on native species and can raise the risk of disease by increasing human-wildlife interactions. A 2022 study on how different farm practices contribute to emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) found that “less ‘intensive’ systems are liable to be low-yielding. This means they require both a larger livestock population and more land and hence greater habitat loss and degradation, increasing the risk of zoonotic EID emergence.”2.

Frequently asked questions

Can regenerative agriculture reverse climate change?

No, regenerative agriculture is not a climate solution on its own. Because regenerative animal-based agriculture requires massive amounts of land and cannot sequester as much carbon as it emits, it would need to be paired with dramatic reductions in meat consumption to significantly lower the emissions from agriculture.

Can regenerative agriculture feed the world?

No. Regenerative agriculture is not efficient, especially with regard to land use. Further, regenerative animal-based farming requires more land than industrial farming systems, at least 2.5 times more land according to a report funded by regenerative farmers. Meat production already takes up about three billion hectares of land globally; if we expand that land 2.5 times as required by a regenerative system, we would use over 60 percent of the Earth’s land—with just the current population.

We will need to increase food system efficiency by 50 percent by 2050 to feed the growing population. There is not enough land in the world to feed enough people if our agricultural systems were switched entirely to regenerative animal-based agriculture.

Can regenerative agriculture restore lost biodiversity?

Regenerative agriculture’s potential for restoring biodiversity depends on the location and type of regenerative agriculture. Farmed animals are now widespread across the world, but most did not naturally co-evolve naturally with any ecosystem. When animals graze on land far removed from their ancestors’ natural habitats, it may not benefit local biodiversity.

One study that examined 29 years of land use in different grazing systems found that grazing cattle improved biodiversity by 30 percent, but native grazers (in this case, bison) improved biodiversity by 86 percent. Another study that analyzed livestock in the United States argued that “cessation of grazing would decrease greenhouse gas emissions, improve soil and water resources, and would enhance/sustain native species biodiversity.” So holistic grazing may improve biodiversity in certain areas, but not nearly as much as allowing native fauna to thrive and/or rewilding land from animal agriculture.

What is needed to accelerate the transition to regenerative agriculture?

In our report on regenerative agriculture, we outline that large-scale shifts to regenerative agriculture would require financial incentives such as “philanthropic grants, pension funds, real estate investment trusts, and private investment in climate change mitigation strategies.” Further research, increased consumer interest, and improved regulation of the industry would also be needed to accelerate a hypothetical transition.

Are regenerative agriculture and soil health the same thing?

Regenerative agriculture is a system of practices that prioritize, among other things, soil health. But the terms are not interchangeable.

How to support regenerative agriculture

The easiest way to support regenerative agriculture on an individual level is straightforward: patronize local regenerative farms.

How is regenerative agriculture different from sustainable agriculture?

While many aspects of regenerative agriculture are more sustainable than industrial agriculture, such as reduced tilling, reduced pesticide use, and diversifying crops, regenerative agriculture is not inherently sustainable, especially because ruminant animals emit more greenhouse gases than can be stored by the soil. Plant-based agriculture is more sustainable from an emissions standpoint than any animal-based regenerative system.

Further, regenerative agriculture uses massive amounts of land, and thus cannot be scaled up to feed the global population. Regenerative agriculture can play a role in climate harm mitigation, but only if paired with substantial shifts in diets toward plant based foods.

This piece was written by Farm Forward’s Summer Intern, Molly Mulvaney.

As a result of the widespread use of antibiotics on industrial animal farms antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has emerged as a pressing global health issue.1 AMR both threatens the effectiveness of modern medicines and creates conditions for the rapid spread of deadly illnesses. The links between industrial animal farming and the antimicrobial resistance crisis, and the connection between deforestation and risk of new zoonotic diseases, are examples of how human health is inextricably linked to the health of nonhuman animals and to the health of the environment. The scientific and public health community have long recognized these connections and now describe the connections as “One Health.” The World Health Organization (WHO) defines One Health as “an integrated, unifying approach that aims to sustainably balance and optimize the health of people, animals and ecosystems. In the past decade the One Health framework has grown in prominence and is increasingly accepted by national governments and international bodies.

Antimicrobial Resistance is an increasing threat to human and animal health. Solving the problem requires significant reforms to agricultural policy and industrial animal farming practices. Yet, the largest international One Health programs largely fail to acknowledge industrial animal farming as a key threat to the One Health mission. While governments in low- and middle-income countries take the risk of AMR and zoonoses head on, high-income countries continue to dodge root causes and point their fingers elsewhere. To seriously address the AMR crisis, culpable nations must integrate agricultural reform into their One Health frameworks and public policies.

Today, over a dozen countries and international agencies have published variations of “One Health” policies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States, India, the Netherlands, China , and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. The foci of One Health vary among countries and international agencies, but most are concerned with AMR, zoonotic diseases, food safety, public health, environmental degradation, and vector-borne illnesses. The growing number of One Health initiatives use the framework as a guide for public policy, but none adequately address any root issues of AMR, particularly industrial animal agriculture. The One Health framework must incorporate both systemic reform of animal agriculture and preventative measures in developed countries. Without both objectives One Health approaches fail to ensure a better future for humans, animals, and the planet.

Antimicrobial Resistance is a Factory Farming Problem

In 2019, AMR indirectly contributed to nearly 5 million deaths and directly caused over a million. Animal agriculture is a large contributor to AMR due to producers’ widespread use of antimicrobials to prevent disease and to promote animal growth. The WHO declared that “approximately 80% of total consumption of medically important antibiotics is in the animal sector” of certain countries.2 The United States is one of the largest contributors to antibiotic overuse, with consumption per kilogram of livestock almost twice as high than that of all of Europe in 2020. Despite the efforts of groups like the US and UN, however, One Health action plans have failed to take seriously the prevention of AMR within animal agriculture.

What Are Countries and International Agencies Doing to Address AMR? Not Enough.

One of the largest One Health programs is the One Health Quadripartite (OHQ), made up of the Food & Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the UN Environment Programme, the World Health Organization, and the World Organization for Animal Health (formerly OIE). This consortium of international organizations has communicated strong goals for tackling AMR but misses the mark. The OHQ published a “One Health Joint Plan of Action” that dictates their plans for the years 2022-2026. Although the plan emphasizes preventive measures, it lacks any focus on problems stemming from the animal agriculture sector. The document acknowledges that “livestock and fish production systems are not specifically addressed” despite their importance in both preventing and solving AMR. In the OHQ’s lengthy AMR research agenda, they boast that their focus lies “at the interface between sectors that are most relevant to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs),” even though these countries are doing the least to contribute to the AMR crisis. The OHQ’s attitude resembles US remarks that other countries must work to solve climate change while not doing enough itself to reduce emissions. Mitigation and treatment of AMR in LMICs is important, but entirely overlooks causes of AMR attributable to massive meat companies in countries like the US.

The EU Commission on One Health (“Commission”) has similar goals to OHQ but focuses slightly more on the importance of animal agriculture in solving AMR. Animal agriculture reforms from the Commission are vague or unenforceable, leading to minimal or no changes in the production system. Their guidelines on antimicrobial use on animals read, “training courses and guidance materials given to farmers should include information on preventive measures that promote animal health, in particular, implementation of biosecurity measures, good farming practices and herd health planning.” Training courses and guidance materials are valuable but the Commission lacks specific standards, regulations, and rules to gain meaningful change. The Commission does describe some specific methods for addressing AMR, including supplying quality feed and water, improving housing, and using safe alternatives to antimicrobials. While these changes may begin to address the AMR crisis, they have not yet been translated into legislative policies or other regulatory actions.

In the United States, the One Health Federal Interagency Coordination Committee (OH-FICC), run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), is the leading organization for One Health. OH-FICC works with numerous federal regulatory bodies including the USDA and FDA. Despite the extensive network of OH-FICC, the initiative lacks appreciable calls for animal agriculture reform or preventative measures. OH-FICC fails to take accountability for the massive amount of antibiotics used on animals within the food system. The organization contains a National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System, yet will not publicly acknowledge that most of the antibiotics used in the United States are on animals raised for food. In the last few years, OH-FICC has focused much of its resources on projects that evaluate livestock farming in LMICs and find alternative practices that reduce disease and AMR. Animal agriculture can surely use reform, but it is hypocritical of the CDC to ask LMICs to change small farming operations when the United States has some of the most unethical, disease-ridden, AMR-causing livestock practices in the world.

Although previous examples demonstrate One Health failures, Rwanda’s lengthy One Health framework displays thorough and promising initiatives against AMR. Rwanda has developed a report on their One Health plans through 2026 in addition to an entire action plan on AMR. Their AMR plan includes a focus on both animal agriculture and prevention and breaks down objectives including increased education, surveillance, sanitation, and hygiene. Perhaps their most important efforts include training for agricultural workers, veterinarians, and agronomists while also implementing biosecurity guidelines for farms, slaughter plants, and aquaculture facilities. Moreover, the Rwandan government seeks to “restrict broad or generalized use of antimicrobials as growth promoters or as feed additives” and “strengthen regulation and oversight for the supply chain and use of antimicrobials in agriculture and veterinary medicine.” Rwanda’s plan for preventing and treating AMR is highly sophisticated compared to other nations. The CDC, for example, includes minimal AMR prevention, despite the US having 72 times the amount of cattle as Rwanda. Rwanda’s work exhibits a strong start for combating AMR that other, more culpable countries must follow and augment.

Conclusion

Climate change and the intensification of animal production will continue to exacerbate AMR, zoonoses, and emerging health threats. Powerful countries and international organizations must take greater responsibility for public health and develop thorough, accountable One Health approaches.

When our team talks about helping communities align their food practices with their Jewish values, we often skirt past the second part of that mission: strengthening Jewish American communities in the process.

Food plays an integral symbolic and visceral role in strengthening our communities. When we source our meals from places and practices that are consonant with our Jewish values (however they are prioritized from community to community), the members of our communities are also cared for more deeply. And perhaps the fabric of our communal connection is strengthened in knowing that the larger living community–farmed animals, farm and food workers, rural communities, wildlife, and ecosystems–are given the opportunity to flourish. Perhaps we as Jewish eaters gain strength when we bring intention and attention to the chain of transmission that brings food to our plates and to one another.

Our ability to support and strengthen communities multiplies exponentially when we collaborate with a broader village of members. This is why we are thrilled to formally partner with the Rabbinical Assembly and the Conservative Jewish Movement on a groundbreaking cohort program to support up to 7 denomination-affiliated organizations in adopting sustainable kosher food policies. We expect each participating institution to achieve, at a minimum, a 20% reduction in the volume of animal products served.

Why is this cohort program unique?

Many Jewish communities care about the impact of the food they choose to serve and are seeking ways to improve the sustainability of their food choices. While some organizations recognize the crucial role that food sourcing and serving plays in our quest for climate health, harm reduction to people and other animals, and even broader food security, sustainable food practices are not yet the norm in our communities, nor are they widely understood as an necessary step toward achieving minimal greenhouse gas emissions, water, and land use with which Jewish institutions are increasingly concerned.

This program provides a way for institutions to achieve these goals with the practical and educational support from JIFA’s team and the leadership support of the Conservative Movement. While the pilot program will run for one year, each community will come away with a lasting and implementable sustainable food policy.

What is the potential impact of sustainable food policies?

JIFA helps communities adjust food programs where the most positive change is possible. We work creatively on changing their “choice architecture” to help incorporate more sustainable, plant-rich foods instead of  foods that come from harmful industrial practices. To implement these changes we help communities design menus, events, and even dining halls to make the sustainable choice the easy choice.

Changing the meals we serve to community members has a much greater potential to decrease our collective greenhouse gas emissions than other sustainability initiatives, like upgrading our light bulbs or installing low-flow toilets. Making our meals plant-based by default drastically decreases our contribution to climate change and drought, cutting our meals’ greenhouse gas emissions by half and water footprint by up to two-thirds.

If this were scaled to the broader population, we could see unprecedented preservation of our natural resources and consequently a more livable planet: research has shown that without our current levels of meat and dairy consumption, we could reduce global farmland use by more than 75% and still feed all people–an opportunity that our Jewish values of preserving life beckon us to consider.

Why is The Rabbinical Assembly leading this charge?

The Conservative Movement has passionately addressed the ethical implications of our food choices and production practices for decades. RA clergy have advocated for values-aligned practices that extend to every level in the food production chain, including advocating for kosher practices in animal agriculture that better reflect Jewish values.

Just last year, the RA passed a resolution stating that “shifts to our institutional food practices, such as reducing factory-farmed animal product consumption, would help us to better achieve our values.” The resolution also tasked the Social Justice Commission with creating a subcommittee that would “revisit [the RA’s] work in the area of ethical food consumption.” Rav Natan Freller, head of the aforementioned Ethically Sourced Food Subcommittee, is enthusiastic about achieving these goals with JIFA’s support:

“The Rabbinical Assembly has been looking for a partner, with knowledge and resources, to help us educate our communities about the important ethical challenges posed by industrial farming and the potential for plant-forward foods to better align our food choices with our values. This unique partnership between JIFA and the RA is exactly what we needed to get started on this long-term cultural change process, raising awareness about how we make better choices regarding the food we serve and eat. I’m very excited to see this pilot project in action soon and hopeful to see all the good it will disseminate in our communities.”

We are so pleased that the RA has chosen JIFA as a primary partner for this work.

Eating together is an opportunity for connection, fellowship, and significant conversations. We are excited to support this upcoming cohort in strengthening their connection to food, to Jewish life, and to one another as we work on aligning communal food practices with Jewish values.

The USDA announced changes to the guidelines meat companies must follow if they want to label their products as “humanely raised,” “free range,” or “raised without antibiotics.” Farm Forward has long been concerned that most, if not all, animal raising claims confuse the public and humanewash meat company practices. Farm Forward’s own 2021 consumer survey showed that nearly half (45 percent) of Americans think that labels that “certify high welfare” should guarantee that animals are always raised on pasture. However, we know that—regardless of the label you see on the package—finding products from animals raised on pasture is nearly impossible.

As it stands, most animal raising claims have no formal definition, and meat companies simply define the terms, often describing practices that are barely different from standard industry practices. Earlier this year, Farm Forward, along with the Animal Welfare Institute, encouraged Senators Blumenthal (D-CT) and Booker (D-NJ) to take action on this issue, and as a result, they championed a letter urging the USDA to better define and regulate animal raising claims to protect consumers and small farmers.

The need for reform to labeling couldn’t be more urgent, especially when it comes to the “raised without antibiotics” claim. Last year, Farm Forward’s antibiotics investigation revealed that a cattle product that was Certified Organic, Animal Welfare Certified, and “raised without antibiotics” tested positive for a prohibited antibiotic. This was followed by a peer-reviewed paper (and subsequent public attention) which found that 26 percent of cattle labeled as Animal Welfare Certified, which prohibits animals from being treated with antibiotics, came from a feedlot where at least one animal tested positive for antibiotics. The Animal Welfare Certified program is widely used by Whole Foods Market.

The USDA’s announcement today signaled a willingness to require meat companies labeling meat as “raised without antibiotics” to prove, through testing, that the claim is true, but a lot depends on the details. The USDA intends to conduct its own research, and it may still decide not to require testing. Testing is essential to ensure the “raised without antibiotics” claim is truthful. In our 2022 survey, 49 percent of respondents—the plurality—incorrectly thought that the “raised without antibiotics” label means that the product was tested for antibiotic residue. We hope the USDA will require testing and meet consumer expectations.

The steps outlined in the USDA’s announcement—while encouraging—may not be enough to ensure that animal raising claims are meaningful. For example, USDA said they would “recommend” companies submit more evidence to verify their claims and would “encourage” third-party certifications to verify the claims. Neither of those are binding requirements, and given how widespread deception is on grocery store shelves today, anything less may end up missing the mark.

The USDA’s announcement encourages—but does not require—third-party certification, meaning that meat companies may be left to police themselves. Even if the USDA does require third-party certification, it’s critical that they disqualify industry-controlled humanewashing certifications like One Health Certified or American Humane as evidence that a company has indeed raised animals in more humane conditions. Until the USDA sets clear standards for claims like “humanely raised” that are meaningfully above industry standard, and those standards are verified by independent certifications, consumers should be wary when buying products with these labels.

Farm Forward will continue to fight humanewashing and push the USDA to better regulate meat labels to protect consumers and farmers. Join us to help us end humanewashing.

A key goal of the project to move beyond factory farming in the U.S. should be to accelerate the enactment of state and local policy to hold the meat industry accountable for the harm it inflicts on people, animals, and the environment. To further this goal, Farm Forward is collaborating with Yale Law School’s CAFE Law and Policy Lab and other NGOs to develop innovative policy approaches that can be enacted at the state and municipal level to challenge factory farming practices. A coalition of nonprofits will work collaboratively with Yale law and other graduate students to research and understand modern legal and policy challenges for those working to challenge factory farming. The insights and findings generated by the students will complement and support existing policy efforts, providing valuable resources for activists, citizens, and policymakers at the state and local levels.

A critical feature of this work is the theory of change under which we’re operating: the complex problem of industrial animal farming will require a collective, diverse, and intersectional method of policy decision-making and reform, and no single justice area (e.g., environmental justice, labor rights, animal protection, or farmer advocacy) should be advanced at the sacrifice of another.

Like climate change and wealth inequality, factory farming is a wicked problem; its harms to people, animals, the climate and environment are varied, mutually reinforcing, and resistant to change; it doesn’t have a singular, let alone an easily identifiable solution. It’s a unique phenomenon that manifests itself politically, economically, and culturally and therefore requires a nuanced approach that isn’t reducible to only one framework or mode of understanding.

Moving beyond factory farming with public policy

Over the past ten years, the farmed animal protection movement has invested heavily in two strategies—alternative protein and corporate welfare campaigns. While these strategies have significant merit and should be pursued, they are not the only strategies available to the animal advocacy movement. An axiom of our collaboration with Yale Law School is that state and local policy specifically should be explored to meaningfully address the social costs of industrial animal agriculture. This is consistent with Farm Forward’s goal: to build the will, including political will, to end factory farming. To that end, numerous promising efforts across the U.S. should inspire optimism.

For example, Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) introduced the Industrial Agriculture Accountability Act late last year, which introduced a swath of new protections and regulations for confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs). More recently, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) introduced the Transparency in Depopulation Act, which would “prevent federal funding from being used for some of the most inhumane methods of animal slaughter.” While policies of this sort are unlikely to become law in the near term, they galvanize meaningful attention to the issue at the highest level of government.

And in a surprising—and uplifting—move, the Supreme Court decided to uphold California’s Proposition 12, which prohibits the sale of pork from farming operations that use gestation crates for sows regardless of where in the U.S. the pork was produced.

Several promising policy proposals introduced or implemented outside of Washington DC also challenge the institutional power of CAFOs. One particularly exciting multi-state effort is the Good Food Purchasing Program (GFPP), which pushes large institutions, like municipalities, to filter their food procurement through five domains: local economies, health, valued workforce, animal welfare, and environmental sustainability. Values-based procurement policies of this type have been adopted by a number of cities across the U.S., from Los Angeles to Chicago to Boston.

Many other promising initiatives and developments are taking root across the country. Citizen activists and state lawmakers have proposed statewide CAFO moratoriums; controversial ag-gag laws have been struck down in a number of states; the US’ only octopus farm had the most controversial components of its operation halted; cities have proposed comprehensive plant-based procurement policies. In addition, consider all of the work being done by environmental justice groups and labor organizations (among many others) to oppose the political and economic power of CAFOs throughout the U.S.

Conclusion

Among the great number of diverse approaches and strategies employed by the farm animal protection movement today, advocating for robust social policy addressing the different dimensions of harm caused by CAFOs is undoubtedly among the most promising.

The harms of factory farming are not isolated to one group but rather are inflicted upon workers, farmers, animals, neighboring communities, the environment, the climate, and public health. This collaboration between Farm Forward, Yale, and other NGOs signifies a commitment to an intersectional approach to ending factory farming, which centers the importance of building diverse coalitions for the broader effort of building political will.

Why has Costco kept its price for rotisserie chickens at $4.99 since they were first sold in 2009, despite inflation? Costco knows that cheap chicken helps to bring customers through the door, who then spend money on other products with greater profit margins. Costco capitalizes on this trend by selling rotisserie chickens in the back of the store. However, the low price point comes at a high cost for the welfare of the chickens, the environment, and public health.

Is Costco chicken good for you?

Costco chickens are raised on factory farms by the tens of thousands. These industrial farms have a profound impact on the environment and public health at large, and have severe implications for the communities directly surrounding the farms.

Some of these effects are far-reaching. Intensive farming operations result in the production of large amounts of ammonia, nitrous oxide, and methane. These emissions drive climate change, degrade soil, and pollute air and waterways. The sheer number of chickens raised on factory farms also requires that feed be brought in from other locations, contributing to greenhouse gas emissions from transportation. Antibiotics are likely to be emitted in the waste that is produced by the farms, driving the antibiotic resistance crisis.

On a more local scale, the dust produced by factory farms is likely to contain various harmful chemicals, feces, and even bits of feathers and flesh. Exposure to this dust has been linked to the development of respiratory diseases. The ammonia-laden odors produced by factory farms also impact on the health and well-being of the workers at the farms and can even affect health in settlements in the near vicinity.1

Why are Costco chickens so cheap?

Costco has consistently sought ways to reduce the cost of producing their rotisserie chickens, and has succeeded primarily by doubling down on factory farming chickens, which externalize costs on the environment, workers, and farmed animals. Costco has also by vertically integrated its supply chain to gain more control and keep costs low, all while resisting calls for higher animal welfare that could increase production costs. In 2018, Costco broke ground on a new poultry processing facility in Nebraska designed to process more than two million chickens per week. Many local farmers, land owners, and advocates united to oppose the multinational company’s “cradle-to-grave” vertical integration, but Costco proceeded over their objections.

The poultry processing facility is part of a larger complex that allows Costco to control the chicken supply chain from the factory all the way to store. The complex cost the company $450 million to construct and is expected to save it up to $0.35 a bird. Though this may seem like a small amount, the chain sells more than a hundred million rotisserie chickens every year, so that adds up to more than 35 million per year in increased profits or potential savings.

Though Costco stands to save money by vertically integrating its chicken supply chain, the cost to local farmers is likely to be high. Before the chickens are slaughtered and processed, most live in warehouses operated by farmers with nearby land. However, the specifications of how the birds are raised remain under Costco’s control. Though Costco markets their business to farmers by suggesting they can expect to pocket upwards of $90,000 a year through these contracts, experts argue that their true income is closer to $60,000.

When it comes to chickens raised for meat, the birds have been bred over generations to grow very quickly. Motivated by reducing costs and increasing profits, this genetic abuse has resulted in severe health conditions and poor welfare. Costco has shown no inclination to use birds with higher welfare genetics. In 2021, Costco announced an updated animal welfare policy following pressure from farmed animal advocates, yet critics have continued to pressure the company to do better, citing environmental and welfare concerns related to their farms.

What’s in a Costco rotisserie chicken?

You might expect the only ingredients in a rotisserie chicken to be chicken and spices, but this isn’t the case. Costco rotisserie chicken lists 11 ingredients on its labels. They are: chicken, water, salt, sodium phosphates, hydrolyzed casein, modified corn starch, sugar, dextrose, chicken broth, isolated soy protein, monoglycerides, and diglycerides.

What are Costco rotisserie chickens injected with?

Many of the ingredients found on the label of a Costco rotisserie chicken are injected into the flesh of the bird. This is typically done to add flavor.

Does Costco rotisserie chicken contain antibiotics?

As part of its animal welfare policy, Costco has signaled that it intends to reduce antibiotic use. A survey it sent to its chicken suppliers found that 97 percent of its Kirkland Signature products (including rotisserie chickens) were raised without the “routine use” of antibiotics that are also used to treat people. However, “routine use” is undefined. If no routine use means that antibiotics are only administered once per flock, that would still mean all birds in the flock received antibiotics. Costco has resisted requests from their shareholders to publish quantitative data showing progress away from the overall use of antibiotics in their chickens. Costco has not released an analysis of their chicken products to support the survey’s results.

Does Costco rotisserie chicken contain hormones?

The U.S. Department of Agriculture prohibits the use of hormones in raising any poultry in the United States. Therefore, the chickens that are slaughtered to become Costco’s rotisserie chickens do not contain any added hormones.

Why are Costco chickens so big?

The average Costco rotisserie chicken weighs three pounds fully cooked. The birds raised for Costco are broiler chickens who have been genetically modified through breeding to grow very large, very quickly. About 100 years ago in 1925, chickens lived for 112 days before being slaughtered at 2.5 pounds. Modern chickens, such as those raised by Costco, are slaughtered at only 47 days but at 5 pounds weigh more than double what their ancestors weighed at slaughter.

Costco rotisserie chickens are what the industry calls “small birds.” Hybrid breeding techniques have also produced “heavy birds,” who are 8-9 pounds when alive and are usually sold cut up as chicken products. All of these birds, large and small, are raised by the tens of thousands on modern chicken farms better known as “factory farms.”

Forests play an important role in maintaining a healthy global environment. They influence the weather and even the acidity of the oceans, affecting ecosystems thousands of miles beyond their borders. Unfortunately, forests are being destroyed by human activity as they are cleared to make way for grazing animals and their feed, as well as for other agricultural and industrial purposes.

What is deforestation?

The destruction of forests can be broken down into two parts: deforestation and forest degradation.

Deforestation takes place when forested areas are converted to nonforest uses, such as urban sprawl, agriculture, or roads.

Degradation consists of the partial destruction of forests through reducing the number of trees and other flora, which prevents these plants from contributing to ecosystems, societies, and economies as they would when allowed to thrive.

Forests are important to water supplies, climate change mitigation, and sustainable food production, and forests support many of the poorest people globally. The FAO estimates that forests supply 86 million green jobs and that 90 percent of people in extreme poverty rely at least in part on forests for their livelihoods—which are put at risk by deforestation and forest degradation.

On top of deforestation’s economic impact, it also severely impacts the climate—annually, deforestation contributes 1.5 gigatons of carbon, roughly the same amount as Russia.

What are the causes of deforestation?

Deforestation and forest degradation have a wide array of causes, most of which can be directly linked to human activities.

Animal agriculture

Animal agriculture is one of the primary drivers of deforestation. Two of the major contributors within animal agriculture are deforestation to clear land for use as pasture and to grow feed for the billions of animals kept on factory farms around the world.

Livestock ranching

Livestock ranching is a major contributor to deforestation, especially in Latin America. Of deforested land in the Amazon, 70 percent is now occupied by pasture for farmed animals. Not only do farmers clear trees to create open land for this grazing activity, this clearance then damages the soil quality and leads to severe degradation of the land via erosion, compaction, and overgrazing, creating the need to clear even more land for agriculture.

Growing feed

An increased global demand for animal feed has led to countries such as Brazil to clear large swathes of forest to grow crops used to feed farmed animals. Soy is a particularly common crop. Between 1994 and 2004, the land area used to grow soy in Latin America more than doubled, and the amount of land dedicated to soy production remains high today. More than three-quarters (77 percent) of the world’s soy is fed to farmed animals.

Degradation

The degradation or partial destruction of forests can often be a precursor to the eventual complete clearing of forests. This is especially true for those forested areas where humans are engaged in extractive industry, such as timber logging.

Forest fires

Already fragmented forests and forest edges are the areas most prone to forest fires, especially those fires that originate from human activities such as camping. Many fires in areas such as the Amazon are set deliberately by those aiming to clear the forest, while in the U.S. 89 percent of forest fires also originate from human activity.

Illegal logging

Illegal logging is big business, with an estimated total value of between $51 and $152 billion yearly. On top of the ecological destruction caused by unsustainable and unchecked logging activity, those taking part in these activities are stealing the ecosystems and value that the harvested forests supply to local communities and the nonhuman species that depend on forests.

Mining

Mining activity in forested areas is driven by an increasing demand for precious metals and stones. One recent analysis found that four countries—Indonesia, Brazil, Ghana, and Suriname—are disproportionately impacted by deforestation directly related to mining activities. In addition to the loss of forests caused directly by mining, forests are also being lost indirectly in two-thirds of the countries included in the analysis.1

Palm oil

In just under 50 years, global palm oil production has increased from two million tons in 1970 to 71 million tons in 2018. This massive increase in production has been felt most in the small band of land along the equator with the best climate for palm plantation growth. In Indonesia, for example, palm oil production accounted for 23 percent of deforestation from 2001 to 2016, a trend that peaked in 2009.

Paper

Demand for toilet paper has been slowly rising over the last several decades. The increased demand for toilet paper has led to an increased pressure on forests. Producing just one ton of toilet paper requires 1.75 tons of raw fiber.

Urbanization

The process of urbanization, wherein people move into new areas and development takes place, directly impacts forested areas through destruction and fragmentation. Urbanization further changes nutrient cycling, introduces nonnative species, and significantly impacts the health of forested areas.

How does deforestation affect animals?

Climate change

The Amazon rainforest is frequently regarded as the lungs of the planet for the role it plays in managing greenhouse gases and releasing oxygen.

As it continues to be destroyed by deforestation, however, these contributions are not the only thing that is being lost. The rainforest also plays a major role in managing precipitation and temperatures locally and across South America. Deforestation could see the Amazon reach a tipping point at which the forest begins to recede without human intervention due to the impact on local climate. This might cause more fires and erosion in the Amazon, and the further loss of forest would accelerate climate change and be detrimental to the whole planet. Humans are not the only animals that will suffer should temperatures in the Amazon and around the world continue to rise and rain patterns shift.

Natural disasters

Deforestation has been noted as responsible for a number of natural disasters, not least the flash floods and landslides that took place in Indonesia in 2019. These disasters left almost 90 people dead and 150 injured. Though the human death toll from these disasters is known, the animals and habitats that were lost as part of these floods and landslides are unknown.

Human interactions

The destruction of forests means that wild animals’ homes and habitats are being displaced and destroyed, bringing wild animals into closer contact with people. These conflicts between humans and animals can take place anywhere. They could be as simple as a bear digging through a trashcan or as dramatic as an elephant ransacking a village.

Starvation

When wild animals lose their habitats due to deforestation, they are often unable to adapt to the new physical environment and as a result can starve to death.

Acidic oceans

Increased ocean acidity is caused when the water absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Because deforestation contributes 10 percent of that carbon dioxide, the continued destruction of forests drives the increasing acidity of the water. As the water absorbs more carbon dioxide it becomes more difficult for a variety of marine creatures.

Loss of habitat

When forests are destroyed the trees are not the only living things killed—the habitats of thousands of different species are also extinguished, causing animals to die. Between 1998 and 2015, an estimated 87 million animals were killed in New South Wales due to the clearing of trees.

How does deforestation affect the environment?

We depend upon forests to store greenhouse gases and help maintain a healthy ecosystem and atmosphere. The destruction of forests has lasting impacts that are often difficult—or even impossible—to reverse.

Climate change

Forests around the world absorb and store a massive 15.6 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide every year. Through deforestation some of this carbon dioxide, over 8 billion tons, is released into the atmosphere, contributing to climate change.

Destruction of homelands

The rate of deforestation on land that is controlled by indigenous communities is markedly lower than on land that is not. When deforestation occurs, indigenous communities can lose their homes or culturally significant natural resources. For these reasons—as well as ongoing cultural commitments to living in balance with nature—many indigenous communities tend to have strong motivations to seek to protect the forests instead of felling them, or allowing others to fell them.

Increased greenhouse gases

Forests store a massive amount of carbon dioxide that is released into the atmosphere when they are destroyed. In 2021, the Amazon rainforest released more CO2 than it absorbed for the first time.

Soil erosion and flooding

Forests help to anchor soil and keep it in place during heavy rainfall. When forests are cut down, their root systems are also removed, making once-forested areas more vulnerable to flooding and erosion.

Water in the atmosphere

The trees that make up forests play a vital role in the water cycle, acting as a mechanism for evaporation. The water that is pulled from trees forms clouds that release rain hundreds or even thousands of miles away from the source forest. The destruction of forests disrupts this cycle and can have deadly impacts on environments around the world.

How does deforestation affect humans?

Food insecurity

Deforestation has a profound negative impact on the amount of precipitation experienced around the world. This reduction in rainfall in turn reduces our ability to grow food that relies on a healthy and operational water system.

Health

The continued destruction of forests also increases the likelihood of pandemics in humans, as interactions between people and animals increase. Research also suggests that the animals that thrive in areas converted from forest to urban uses are in many cases those most likely to carry disease which can mutate and make the jump into humans.

Local people and their livelihoods

Local communities, especially of indigenous people, are the most at risk when it comes to deforestation, as they often rely on forests for much of their livelihood.

Conclusion

Forests play a vital role in maintaining the health of humans, other animals, and the environment. Unfortunately, they are being destroyed by human activity on a vast scale. Some of the best steps we can take as individuals to manage the destruction caused by our consumption are to reduce or eliminate meat eating, reduce consumption of goods such as paper, and to limit consuming products containing palm oil.

Photo: Andrew Skowron / We Animals Media

People who consume dairy may believe they are not encouraging the slaughter of any animals by doing so. But industrial dairy production requires that cows must repeatedly be made pregnant to produce milk, bringing many calves into the world who the industry must either use productively or dispose of. One of the ways to use the male calves born as a “byproduct” of dairy production is to turn them into meat known as veal.

What is veal?

Veal is the meat from young cows, who are usually the unwanted male calves of the dairy industry. The calves tend to be around four months old when they are slaughtered. Around 390,000 calves were commercially slaughtered in the U.S. in 2021.

Veal has mainly been produced and consumed in a handful of European countries, but its consumption in Europe has declined over the past 20 years. Animal advocates and veterinarians consider veal production to be particularly cruel and have successfully campaigned to have its worst aspects—notably keeping the calves in tiny crates—banned in some countries.

What animal is veal?

Veal comes from young cows, but is given different names depending on how young they were at slaughter and the conditions they were raised in.

Bob veal

“Bob veal” is meat from newborn calves, often sold directly from dairy farms. The calves haven’t had time to use their muscles, which makes the meat more tender. About 15 percent of veal sold in the U.S. is classified as bob veal, being from calves up to three weeks old or 150 pounds in weight.

Slink veal

“Slink veal” is made from stillborn calves or unborn calves removed from slaughtered pregnant cows. It is illegal to produce veal this way in the U.S. and Canada, and slink veal has not been widely eaten since the Victorian era.

Rose veal

“Rose veal” (or “rosé veal”) comes from cows who are over six months old at slaughter. The name comes from the color of the meat, which is darker than other veal meat because the calves are older when they are killed and they are fed a diet that includes fiber, as opposed to only milk. Rose veal is largely a product of the U.K., developed in response to changing laws around veal production. It may also be marketed under other names or referred to as “humanely raised.”  

Is veal just baby cow?

Veal comes from baby cows and very young cows. Cows have a natural lifespan of 15 to 20 years, so being slaughtered at a year or younger means they have lived for less than 5 percent of their natural life. The age equivalent for a human would be about four years old or under.

Why is veal cruel?

Not only are the calves used for veal very young, but they have historically been housed in a way that animal welfare groups consider particularly cruel, in order to ensure the veal meat is as tender as possible.     

How are veal calves housed?

Veal crates

Calves are kept in individual veal crates so small that they stop calves from moving around. This prevents their muscles from developing and makes the meat more tender. Sometimes the calves are also chained inside the crates to further restrict movement. Public pressure and campaigning resulted in the U.K. banning the use of veal crates in 1990, with the European Union following suit in 2006.1 In the U.S., some states have banned veal crates, and some veal producers have also been voluntarily phasing them out under pressure from campaigning groups.

Restricted space

Calves raised for veal are now more commonly kept in group pens, though in the U.S. they still spend the first two months of their lives housed individually, purportedly to make it easier to monitor their health. Images from the American Veal Association show that though group pens are an improvement on veal crates they are nonetheless still small, with slatted floors inside barren sheds.

Abnormal behaviors

Calves can exhibit abnormal, repetitive behaviors, known as stereotypies, when their natural instincts are frustrated. Being fed on liquid diets in particular can lead to such frustration, since it provides little opportunity for the calves to chew. As a result, many will engage in rolling and unrolling their tongues inside and outside of their mouths, as well as licking and nibbling other objects. Not having their mothers’ teat to suckle on may also contribute to these behaviors.2

Increased disease susceptibility

Calves are born without much natural immunity. To develop healthy immune systems, they need to ingest enough good colostrum (the milk produced by mother mammals, including humans, right after they give birth) in their first 24 hours to receive maternal antibodies. Due to changes in their feeding systems and exposure to a large number of infectious agents soon after birth, calves are at very high risk of becoming ill, particularly with digestive disorders due to infection or through compromised digestive development.

How are veal calves raised?

Separated at birth

Calves used for veal come from the dairy industry, so they are not allowed to stay with their mothers for longer than a day or two, to maximize the amount of the mother’s milk that can be sold. There is debate over whether it is better for the cows’ welfare to remove the calves immediately, before they’ve had a chance to bond with their mothers, or to let them stay with them for a few days, but it is clear that separating them at all goes against the cows’ natural behavior. Calves will naturally wean at around eight months but may maintain a bond with their mothers for years. Disrupting their bond is distressing for both.3

If the calves were allowed to grow to adulthood, long-term effects of early maternal separation would become more apparent, as research has found that calves who are allowed to stay with their mothers for longer are more sociable and able to cope better with changes in circumstances later in life.4

Abnormal gut development

Veal calves are traditionally raised on milk substitutes, and are still often raised this way in Europe and the U.S. In the U.K., calves raised for veal are required to be fed a diet that includes a daily minimum of roughage and fiber from the age of two weeks to help their digestive systems develop normally. Milk substitute diets intentionally omit iron, which makes the meat lighter in color so that it can be marketed as white veal. This practice both causes anemia and can be damaging to the intestinal health of calves. Underdeveloped digestive systems make it harder for them to obtain nutrients, and leave them susceptible to infectious diseases and gut problems.5 Diarrhea is the most common illness among calves under three months old because they are born without much of an immune system, and it is even more of a problem for calves on an artificial diet.

Cruel transportation

While meat from very young “bob” calves might be sold directly from dairy farms, most calves are transported to veal farms or auction houses, sometimes traveling long distances. The experience is highly stressful and bad for their health. One study found that in the Netherlands, one of the major veal producers in Europe, calves are collected from different dairy farms, including some in other countries, and transported together to veal farms. Transporting them when they are only a few weeks old leaves them susceptible to illness, while the restriction on feed and water before and during transportation leaves many with diarrhea, dehydration, serious weight loss, and lameness. Respiratory illnesses are also associated with transportation.6 Conditions are so harsh that some calves die during transport, but not so many that it makes economic sense for farmers to improve transport conditions.

Some countries mainly export male dairy calves, such as Ireland, which has a huge surplus of unwanted calves due to a government-driven expansion of the dairy industry in the last decade. Around 200,000 of the 750,000 male calves born there are exported to the European veal market, enduring grueling journeys by ship for as long as 27 hours without food or water. In response to criticisms from the European Parliament, the Irish government has been trying to export the calves by plane to cut journey times—a plan called “horrific” by Ethical Farming Ireland.

Cruelty to calves

There have been a number of documented instances of calves born into the dairy industry in the U.S. and elsewhere being treated brutally by farm staff, who have been recorded kicking, throwing, and dragging calves.

Drug use

As calves are highly susceptible to illness, it is often necessary for them to be treated with a number of medications, particularly in the first weeks after they arrive at veal farms when they are most likely to be suffering from respiratory and gastrointestinal disorders.7

Calves are “stunned” before slaughter

In the U.S., U.K., and other countries, with some exceptions, cattle must be stunned before slaughter so that they do not feel pain when they are killed, often by having their throats cut. Calves and other cattle are usually stunned with a captive bolt gun, which shoots a bolt through their skulls. But stunning is not always effective; one study of 998 cattle stunned and killed in a Swedish slaughterhouse found that 14 percent of calves, or about one out of seven calves, were not accurately shot.8 This means that a large number of calves are still conscious when they are shackled and hoisted into the air by their back legs, before and during the cutting of their throats.

How is veal legal?

Veal exists because

• the dairy industry requires that cows must be regularly impregnated and give birth in order to produce milk,
• the dairy industry has no use for male calves, and
• as long as farmed animals are treated as commodities, slaughtering them for food will be legal.

Veal facts and statistics

Are hormones and antibiotics used in veal raising?

Antibiotics are permitted for calves to prevent or treat disease, and are frequently required in the first weeks that a calf spends on a veal farm. While growth hormones can be used in beef cattle in the U.S., they are not approved for use in veal calves.

How much veal do people consume?

Americans consume relatively little veal, at one- to two-tenths of a pound per person each year. By contrast, French per capita consumption of veal is around 9 pounds, and Italian consumption around 8 pounds. While the Netherlands is a major veal producer, only a small portion is served in hotels and restaurants domestically; most Dutch veal is consumed in Germany, Italy, and France.

Is veal healthy?

Veal is considered a nutrient-dense source of protein, but eating too much red meat is not recommended by health experts. Consumption of red meat has been linked to increased risk of heart disease, diabetes, colon polyps, and pneumonia.

Is there such a thing as humane veal?

Proponents of veal have tried to make the case that where veal crates have been banned and phased out, the meat is humane. Changes to the calves’ housing represent a welfare improvement, but the issue remains that the veal industry exists as a way to use otherwise “useless” calves who are born into an industry that depends on the repeated pregnancies of female cows, usually in industrial systems. For some, higher welfare veal is preferable to the calves being killed just after birth, but for many others neither option can be considered humane.

What happens to bull calves of dairy cows that aren’t reared for veal?

Many male calves born on dairy farms are shot, since they do not tend to be economically valuable. In the U.K., new rules against this practice and the rise in the use of sexed semen to avoid dairy cows giving birth to males have reduced the number of calves killed on farms significantly, with about 60,000 (15 percent) killed per year in the last few years.

Conclusion

The lives of calves in the veal industry in the United States are generally better than they used to be, now that veal crates have largely become a thing of the past. But veal, like all forms of industrial animal agriculture, remains problematic in many of its practices. Knowing the cruelties that permeate the veal industry, conventional dairies, and other forms of industrial animal agriculture, you can see why Farm Forward’s advice is to eat conscientiously, as few animals as possible, ideally none.

Many of us have fond memories from elementary school of tracing our handprint and using crayons to color in the outline with oranges, yellows, browns, and reds to make a turkey. This classic image of a turkey in popular culture is, however, far from accurate. The turkeys that are slaughtered around holidays or processed into deli meat and turkey bacon are a uniform, stark white. The lives they lead before being slaughtered, stuffed, and served on our tables are also a far cry from what any of us would have imagined in grade school.

Turkey farming and animal welfare

The welfare of turkeys on factory farms is seriously compromised. Their genetics are poor thanks to generation upon generation of birds being bred to improve production with little focus on animal welfare. Further, the abysmal conditions on factory farms often necessitate that turkeys have their anatomy surgically altered in order to prevent harmful behaviors.

Artificial insemination

Artificial insemination is a process by which a farmer inseminates a female bird with semen that has previously been collected from a male. Virtually all turkeys slaughtered for food in the United States are artificially inseminated, as the large size of their breasts and thighs make it impossible for them to breed naturally.

Industry breeding

The turkeys on factory farms are rotund due to generations of intensive breeding to maximize their growth and particularly the size of their breasts and thighs. This results in abnormal anatomy that can make it difficult for turkeys to walk or even stand as they approach the age of slaughter. The industry admits that genetic selection for fast growth and broad breast leads to difficulty walking, and notes that “gait evaluations in meat-type poultry flocks normally find between 30 to 65% of the population with gait patterns called ‘abnormal’ without having bone issues.”

Painful husbandry procedures

There are a number of husbandry practices that cause pain to turkeys, whether short-lived or enduring, including debeaking, desnooding, and detoeing.

Debeaking

Debeaking, also known as beak trimming, is performed to prevent the development of the feather pecking and cannibalism that frequently occur on factory farms raising birds, largely due to the stressful and crowded conditions in which they are raised. The beak of a bird is highly sensitive, and cutting it can result in lifelong pain and changes in behavior, such as guarding.

Desnooding

Removing turkey snoods from chicks is common practice on turkey farms. A snood is the fleshy, long appendage that drapes down from the top of a turkey’s head. Kansas State University recommends using either nail trimmers or simple thumbnail and finger pressure to remove the snood. The procedure is performed to prevent injuries from pecking by other turkeys later in life.

Detoeing

Detoeing, also called toe trimming and toe clipping, involves the removal of a turkey’s claws at an early age. Research has suggested that birds who have been toe clipped may walk less than those who have not had the tips of their toes removed.

Enclosed sheds

The birds are often kept packed together by the hundreds or thousands in large sheds which prevent them from accessing the outdoors or displaying their natural behaviors such as perching, dustbathing and foraging.

Ammonia-laced air

Despite the fact that turkeys’ susceptibility to respiratory diseases increases at ammonia exposure levels of 10 parts per million, suggested caps for maximizing the efficiency of the birds are 25 parts per million.

Intensive indoor systems

Intensive indoor systems of farming place the emphasis on raising large birds as efficiently as possible in order to maximize profit. This leads to the use of light manipulation, as well as cramped housing that increases the risk of problems such as heat stress and lameness.

Catching and transport

Transporting turkeys from the farm to the slaughterhouse is an extremely stressful period for the birds. In order to be moved, several turkeys will be stuffed into a small crate and then loaded onto a truck. Throughout the journey they will be deprived of food and water, and vulnerable to weather conditions.

Confined and killed in vast numbers

Turkeys are raised by the millions and housed in barns with no access to the outdoors. After 20 weeks, they are shipped to slaughter along with the hundreds or even thousands of other birds that they have spent the last several months literally rubbing shoulders with.

How are turkeys farmed?

As with all industrialized farming, raising turkeys has become a science with farmers carefully monitoring how much feed and which supplements they offer to encourage growth and productivity. Everything about the environment the birds grow in is controlled to ensure that farmers get the best return on their investment.

How long does a turkey take to grow?

Industrial turkeys have been bred to grow abnormally fast, multiplying the weight at which they hatched by five times in just a month and by 50 times by the time they are five months old. With slaughter usually taking place between 18 and 20 weeks of age, the must birds gain weight very quickly. At the point of slaughter a male turkey, or tom, is likely to weigh 38 pounds, while a female, or hen, is likely to weigh 26.

How long do turkeys live?

A wild adult turkey is likely to live about three or four years. However, a domestic turkey is likely to be slaughtered between 18 and 20 weeks of age.

What do turkeys eat on a farm?

Turkeys are generally fed diets specific to their age to encourage maximum growth. This means feeding them a diet with more protein when the birds are younger and then switching to a diet with less protein but more calories to make sure that the birds continue to gain weight quickly in the period before slaughter.

How big is the turkey farming industry?

According to the National Turkey Federation, an industry organization based in the U.S., in the United States alone turkey farming is connected to over 380,000 jobs, with wages totaling more than $22 billion annually. Over 215.5 million turkeys were slaughtered in the United States in 2021. In 2022, over 5 million turkeys were depopulated, or killed on the factory farm and not in a slaughterhouse, due to the ongoing avian flu outbreak. These 5 million birds equate to 2.5 percent of all turkeys slaughtered for food in 2021. Due to avian flu, the number of birds successfully raised to slaughter age was far lower in both the second and third quarters of 2022 than in 2021.

What state is the biggest producer of turkey?

In both 2020 and 2021, the state that slaughtered the most turkeys was Minnesota. In 2020, 42,117,000 turkeys were killed in Minnesota and in 2021 the number was 44,776,000. In every month of 2021 except December, Minnesota slaughtered more than 3,000,000 turkeys. In December 2021, 2,889,000 turkeys were slaughtered.

No states come close to slaughtering as many turkeys as Minnesota. However, Illinois has slaughtered the second most turkeys in recent history with 23.8 million turkeys slaughtered in 2021 and 23.2 million in 2020. Next up is North Carolina which in 2021 slaughtered 21.1 million turkeys and in 2020 slaughtered 20.8 million.

Is a turkey farm profitable?

The average salary of a turkey farmer is just over $32,000 a year. This is under the median personal income in the U.S., which stands at $35,805. Though the wholesale price of a frozen turkey ran at about $1.55 per pound in 2022, turkey farmers see only a tiny percentage of that. The difference goes to the integrators that package and sell the birds.

How are farmed turkeys killed?

The actual moment of slaughter is not the only point at which turkeys suffer in the slaughter process. Every step of the way is likely to cause fear and stress, and further compromise the welfare of the turkeys.

Upon their arrival at the slaughterhouse, the birds are unloaded and the slaughter process begins. The process for all poultry is very similar and starts with the birds being hung upside down by their legs while fully conscious. They are then dragged through a bath of electrified water which, when all goes as planned, should stun them. After going through the bath, they are killed by having their neck arteries cut, and then their bodies are prepared, sliced, and processed.

Turkey farming facts and statistics

• According to a survey by the National Turkey Federation, 88 percent of U.S. households eat a turkey on Thanksgiving. This translates to 46 million individual birds.
• The common belief that Benjamin Franklin wanted the U.S. national bird to be a turkey is a myth and stems from a letter in which he criticized the Great Seal.
• The crowding together of genetically uniform, immunocompromised turkeys on factory farms provides the perfect breeding ground for the spread of disease. To combat illness, turkeys can be given vaccines through their drinking water. To be sure that they consume the water containing the vaccine, they are not offered water beforehand so that they are dehydrated at the time of vaccination.

Conclusion

There are no winners on turkey farms. The birds endure painful mutilations and a short life in confined spaces where they are manipulated constantly for the sake of production. The farmers often only barely scrape by, making only pennies per pound of turkeys they produce.

To call foie gras controversial would be an understatement. To produce foie gras, male ducks and geese are force-fed by poorly paid farm workers several times a day until their livers become fatty and diseased. The resulting pale white meat of the liver is then sold to high-end restaurants for a few wealthy people to enjoy. Few food items are so widely viewed as cruel, or so succinctly capture the dynamics of an inequitable food industry. Even King Charles III of England has taken a stand, banning its consumption in all his residences.

What is foie gras?

The term “foie gras” is the French for “fatty liver,” and foie gras is literally the deliberately fattened liver of a duck or goose. The fattiness is accomplished via force-feeding, leading the product to be banned in many places. In 2021, almost 118 million tons of foie gras were produced in the European Union alone. European Union countries account for about 90 percent of foie gras production, with the remaining 10 percent produced primarily in China, Canada, and the United States. In Europe, France produces almost 70 percent of the foie gras while Hungary, Bulgaria, Spain, and Belgium produce the rest. In the United States, domestic foie gras comes primarily from just two farms.

What is foie gras made of?

Though traditionally foie gras is the fattened liver of a goose, more than 90 percent of the foie gras now produced comes from ducks. This shift is due to the fact that force-feeding ducks is easier than force-feeding geese.

Geese

Fattened goose livers account for only 5 percent of foie gras currently being produced. Despite this, or perhaps due in part to its rarity, goose foie gras is perceived as a superior foie gras to some fans and can be more prized than duck foie gras. The breed of goose most commonly raised and force-fed to produce foie gras is the grey Landes goose. Different species of geese gain weight and store fat differently. While Polish geese tend to gain weight around their muscles and body, grey Landes geese gain weight in their livers.

Ducks

Most foie gras comes from ducks. The two breeds of duck most frequently raised for foie gras are Muscovy (or Barbary) ducks and mulard ducks. Ducks are favored for foie gras production over geese because they are behaviorally easier to handle. All the foie gras produced in the United States comes from ducks.

What is the origin of foie gras?

Despite France being where most foie gras is produced and consumed, French farmers have little to do with the food’s origin story. Geese were first force-fed by Egyptians who were likely interested in the process as a means of creating oil rather than to fatten the birds’ livers for eating. The force-feeding can be seen in paintings dating back to 2500 BCE. Romans were the first to force-feed geese for foie gras. They would feed the geese dried figs to give a sweet taste to the fattened, diseased livers. Recipes on how to prepare foie gras started appearing in books during the eighteenth century.

What is the difference between pâté and foie gras?

Pâté and foie gras are not necessarily the same thing, though they are easily confused. Pâté is a concoction made by blending meat and fat with other ingredients, whereas foie gras is the fattened liver of a goose or duck. Foie gras can be made into a pâté but it is not always eaten as such.

How is foie gras made?

In order to produce foie gras, ducks and geese are subjected to two phases: pre-feeding and feeding.

Pre-feeding phase

During the pre-feeding phase the birds are allowed to consume food freely. Generally this phase of their lives lasts until they have developed their feathers at around 12 weeks of age.

Feeding phase

Once birds are 12 weeks old, they are moved to either small individual cages or group pens where they are housed during the force-feeding phase.1 During the force-feeding phase, birds have an increasing amount of food administered to them through a tube placed down the throat in a process called gavage. The birds are force-fed several times a day. This period usually lasts two to three weeks before the birds are slaughtered and their livers harvested.

Why is foie gras cruel?

Suitability of breeds and species

The breeds of duck and goose raised for foie gras are chosen primarily because of their temperament and their physiology. In order to be force-fed birds must be easily handled. This is a big reason why ducks have become more commonly raised for foie gras than geese. The duck most commonly used for foie gras is the mulard duck, a cross between a Peking duck and a Muscovy duck. These ducks are favored by the foie gras industry because their livers tend to get fattier as the birds gain weight, instead of the fat being added to other places on their bodies.

Force-feeding procedure

The process of forcing a tube down a bird’s esophagus and then shoving up to 450 grams of food down it two or three times a day for weeks exposes the birds to the possibility of injury due to rough handling. The force-feeding is also in excess of what the bird would normally consume. If the force-feeding process were to be paused, birds would then be likely to fast for up to three days, suggesting that the force-feeding goes beyond the limits of the birds’ satiety and comfort.

Fear

The breed of duck that is most often raised for foie gras is more fearful of people than most other breeds. This means that they are likely to experience a greater amount of fear during feedings.

Injury

Injury can result from a variety of different factors. During feedings, a bird’s esophagus and throat could be injured due to poor handling. They are also more susceptible to heat stress than birds that are not fattened.

Stress

In order to be force-fed, ducks and geese must be captured by handlers. Being captured and held leads to stress for the ducks.

Housing and husbandry

To provide opportunities for ducks to socialize, they tend to be housed in small pens. This means that catching the birds for force-feeding can be more effort and lead to greater stress for the ducks. The force-feeding also increases their susceptibility to heat stress and bone breakages during transport.

Enlarged liver

During the fattening process, a bird’s liver can increase in size by up to 10 times, and will end up being more than 50 percent fat. Due to its condition, the organ is no longer able to function at full capacity and blood flow is reduced.

Mortality rates

Mortality rates for birds that are being force-fed are significantly higher than birds of the same age that are not undergoing the process. Studies in Belgium, France, and Spain have seen mortality rates between 2 and 4 percent for birds being force-fed, that is, one bird in 25 or 50 dying during the period of being force-fed. The mortality rate for birds not experiencing gavage sits at around 0.2 percent, or one bird in 500. So the mortality rate for birds being force fed is 10 to 20 times higher than that of birds not being force-fed.

Is foie gras healthy?

Whether foie gras is healthy has been a topic of debate. One recent study based on results in mice notably showed that consumption of foie gras may be linked to amyloidosis, the build up of a particular protein that can impact the functioning of organs.2

Is foie gras banned in the U.S.?

Efforts have been made to ban the sale of foie gras in the United States. However, these efforts have failed and most of the country still allows the sale of these diseased livers.

What states and countries have banned foie gras?

Several jurisdictions around the world, including in the U.S., have banned the sale of foie gras. Some of these include:

New York City

The ban was approved by voters in 2019 and was supposed to go into effect in 2022. However, the ban was challenged in court and the legal battle is ongoing.

California

California originally banned foie gras in 2004 though legal challenges pushed the effective date of the ban out to 2012.

Turkey

Turkey banned the production of foie gras in their animal protection law which prevents the force-feeding of animals for any purpose other than the health of the animal.

India

India banned the import of foie gras in 2014 making it the first country to ban the import and not just the production of the product.

Australia

Australia has banned the production of foie gras within its borders but not its consumption, sale, or import.

Argentina

Argentina has banned the production of foie gras since 2003.

Israel

Force-feeding geese has been illegal in Israel since 2003.

United Kingdom

In the U.K. the production of foie gras is banned but there is nothing stopping the import of the product.

Why is foie gras banned?

Foie gras has been banned primarily on grounds of animal welfare. The Humane Society of the United States and other entities asked the Food and Drug Administration to prevent the sale of foie gras for human food on the basis of health in 2007. However, the petition was unsuccessful.

What is so controversial about foie gras?

The reasons why foie gras should be banned are many: birds are overfed, mortality rates are higher, and the handling is stressful for the birds, among other animal welfare issues. Those who support foie gras may argue that the farms in the United States support hundreds of jobs and are helping to maintain their local communities. However, the farms in the U.S. are only able to make a profit by taking advantage of and underpaying their workers, most of whom are immigrants from Mexico and Central America, many of them undocumented. Often workers are only paid a few hundred dollars a week despite living, and working, in upstate New York. Despite the fact that she is processing birds with livers that will likely sell for $150 or more, one worker at a foie gras farm makes only $380 a week, which comes to less than $20,000 annually.

Why is foie gras unethical?

Question around the ethics of foie gras stem from the treatment of the ducks and geese who are raised and overfed to produce the fatty, diseased livers considered a delicacy.

Why is foie gras so expensive?

Foie gras is labor intensive to produce. Birds are force-fed by hand several times a day. This, combined with the small number of producers of foie gras and the small amount obtained from each bird, plus the tradition of the food being a delicacy, result in an expensive item.

Are there vegan alternatives to foie gras?

Vegan foie gras can be made at home using a combination of cashews, cocoa butter, nutritional yeast, cognac and other ingredients, resulting in a savory and rich final product with a texture very similar to its animal-derived inspiration. Depending on where you live, you may also be able to purchase vegan foie gras at the grocery store.

Conclusion

Foie gras is considered to be a delicacy by many. It’s a delicacy that most of us will never try, however, whether due to its astronomical price point or our moral compass. In order to produce the food, ducks and geese are repeatedly force-fed past the point of satiety. There are alternative products that do not require the suffering of animals.

In 2021, 129 million pigs were slaughtered in the United States. Each of these pigs was born to a mother who likely spent the majority of her pregnancy in a gestation crate, a metal cage so small that she was unable to move apart from sitting, standing, or lying down. This restriction of mother pigs’ movements prevented them from creating nests for their future piglets, led to repetitive behaviors such as chewing or biting, and contributed to injuries such as scrapes and ulcers. Despite these outcomes, gestation crates have remained the dominant housing method for mother pigs within industrialized farming. Some states and countries are slowly moving toward outlawing the use of these cages, but their popularity among farmers remains high.

What are gestation crates?

There are a few different housing options for pregnant pigs on factory farms. Gestation crates are the most common choice. It’s important to note that prior to actually giving birth, the mother pigs—called sows by the industry—are moved to different types of housing, often “farrowing crates,” which are often even more restrictive than gestation crates.

Gestation crates

Gestation crates, also called gestation stalls, house individual pregnant pigs and provide just enough space to stand, sit, lie down, and take a step forward or backward. Pigs do not have the freedom even to turn around, let alone or enjoy natural behaviors such as rooting or creating nests. As a result, mother pigs housed in gestation crates are inactive. They obviously spend less time walking than pigs kept in other housing systems, and even spend less time standing.

Alternative forms of housing for pregnant pigs include group pens, free-range, and pasture-raised.

Group pens

Group pens house multiple pregnant sows together. Though there are several different types of group pens, the most popular ones in the United States are built indoors, with slatted floors so that feces may drop through to a sewage system below. The number of pigs housed in a group pen system varies from five to several hundred. The social life of pigs in group pens needs to be managed, because pigs have a social structure that can lead to an unequal distribution of food if feedings are not carefully performed. The social structure can also lead to injuries due to aggression and fighting within the group.

Free-range

When housed in a free-range system, pregnant sows are in theory given access to the outdoors. However, the USDA only regulates the term “free range” in regard to poultry. Free-range labels applied to lamb, cow, and pig products are not regulated by the USDA. (In regard to poultry, the USDA definition of “free range” only means that birds are allowed access to open air—which could mean 5 minutes per day of access to a screened-in concrete slab—according to Consumer Reports.) Without additional welfare certifications or regulated claims, products that carry the “free range / free roaming” claim are often meaningless for animal welfare.

Pasture-raised

Pigs who are raised on pasture—which is what many people envision when they hear the phrase “free range”—face issues like parasites from the outdoors and the potential for exposure to the elements. Pasture-based farrowing is considerably higher welfare than group pens or gestation crates.

What is the purpose of gestation crates?

Pigs have a very sensitive social structure. When placed into group housing systems pigs are more likely to be injured due to aggressive behavior from the other pregnant pigs. By separating all of the pigs and placing them into individual cages the risk of being injured by other pigs goes away. Producers are also better able to regulate the amount of food provided to each individual animal. However, the cost for the welfare of the mother pig is very high, as she is not able to engage in natural behaviors or even turn around in her cage. Pigs living in gestation crates are constantly stressed and suffer both physically and psychologically.

What is the difference between a farrowing crate and a gestation crate?

While both gestation crates and farrowing crates are highly restrictive forms of housing that are specifically for mother pigs, there are key differences between them. During pregnancy, pigs are housed in gestation crates. Once the mother pigs are getting close to giving birth they are then moved out of gestation crates and placed into farrowing crates. Gestation crates have room only for pregnant pigs; farrowing crates immobilize mother pigs but include space that piglets can occupy while accessing their mother’s teats to nurse. Both forms of confinement prevent the mother pigs from moving around and expressing their natural behaviors.

How many pigs are kept in a gestation crate?

Each gestation crate houses a single pregnant pig in order to keep her isolated from other pigs.

How long are pigs kept in gestation crates?

Pigs are placed into gestation crates for the entirety of their gestational period, which is about 16 weeks or 4 months long. This means that for the entirety of this duration the mother pigs are unable to move beyond simply lying, sitting, or standing.

Why are gestation crates bad?

There are several major welfare issues associated with gestation crates, all of which stem from the physical restriction that pigs experience when locked inside. They include the restriction of natural behaviors, the injuries that result from confinement, and the repetitive, purposeless behaviors that mother pigs may develop due to their inability to move. This is not an exhaustive list of the welfare issues with the pig industry as a whole, which are plentiful, but specifically  those caused directly by the use of gestation crates.

Behavioral restriction

Pigs are highly intelligent animals who enjoy a wide range of behaviors when in their natural habitats, especially when pregnant. Pigs enjoy rooting and creating nests. When housed in gestation crates, mother pigs are unable to perform these behaviors due to the limitations placed on their movement. Within the cages, pigs are only able to stand, sit, lie down, and perhaps take a step forward or backward.

Confinement injuries

The length and severity of the confinement that pigs experience in gestation crates can lead to the development of pressure sores, ulcers, and abrasions. The frequency of these injuries is higher in gestation crates than other forms of gestational housing.

Psychological suffering

For many years we have understood that the behavior of crated sows is comparable to that of humans who are mentally suffering and experiencing severe depression. Despite this, progress on the welfare of pregnant sows has been painfully slow.

Stereotypy

Stereotypy or stereotypic behaviors in pigs are behaviors that have no apparent goal or purpose but that are performed repeatedly by animals experiencing intensive confinement. Common stereotypic behaviors include biting, chewing, licking, and rubbing. Such behaviors are frequently seen in mother pigs who are locked into gestation crates. The mother pig is not the only one impacted by these behaviors. Research suggests that the offspring of mother pigs that displayed high levels of stereotypy during pregnancy are different from the offspring of pigs that did not. Specifically, piglets birthed by mothers with lower levels of stereotypy were more vocal, an indicator of excitement. Piglets birthed by mothers that displayed high stereotypy wandered more, which researchers noted could be seen as “explorative” or could result from “increased anxiety.”1

Are gestation crates legal in the U.S.?

At the federal level, gestation crates are legally allowed to be used when raising pigs for consumption. However, there are several states that have banned gestation crates. The states that have taken this step include Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maine, Michigan, Ohio, Oregon, and Rhode Island. Two states, California and Massachusetts, have even gone as far as banning the sale of meat that was raised using gestation crates outside of their borders. These states, however, only make up 6.62 percent of the pork production industry in the United States. One of the states with a ban in place, Ohio, is responsible for more than half of that, and its ban does not take effect until 2026.

Where are gestation crates banned?

Sweden and the United Kingdom were the two first countries to introduce total gestation crate bans, with Sweden’s measure being introduced in 1994 and the United Kingdom following suit just a few years later in 1999. In 2013, a European Union Directive took effect restricting gestation crates to no more than 5 weeks of a pig’s typically 16–17 week pregnancy. Canada also restricts gestation crates to five weeks, but unfortunately has no laws for the welfare of pigs, so this is a voluntary standard introduced by the industry-led National Farmed Animal Care Council (NFACC). The Canadian ban was originally meant to take effect in 2024 but has faced trouble, with industry stakeholders pushing an extension to 2029.

What are the alternatives to gestation crates?

There are two alternatives to gestation crates: group pens and free-range housing. Both alternatives allow mother pigs to move around more than gestation crates, which reduces the amount of stereotypy and injuries due to confinement, and enables the pigs to engage in  more natural behaviors.

Group pens can house anywhere from five to a couple of hundred pigs. The primary welfare concerns associated with group pens stem from the social structure that pigs establish. This structure can lead to aggressive behavior and fights. When pigs are housed in group pens it is also important to ensure that all the pigs in the pen are consuming the appropriate amount of food, because if they are not carefully monitored the more dominant pigs are likely to overconsume while the pigs at the bottom of the pecking order are likely to undereat and lose weight.

The housing system that would seem to provide the most freedom and welfare benefits for the pigs is free-range housing or pasture based farrowing. However, the USDA does not regulate the term “free range” as applied to pigs. That means that when it comes to free-range pig products, anything goes. Without additional welfare certifications or regulated claims, labels that carry the “free range claim are often meaningless for animal welfare. Those few farms that allow pigs to farrow on pasture offer the highest welfare conditions for mother pigs.

Conclusion

Mother pigs suffer for months locked in gestation crates and unable to express their natural behaviors or even turn around. Their bodies are treated as commodities by a system of food production that only values them for their ability to give birth. The vast majority of pig products found in grocery stores, including leading retailers like Costco and Trader Joes, come from pigs who’ve been confined in gestation crates. Continuing to support the consumption of bacon, ham, and other pork products means that we are economically propping up the industry that perpetuates these realities. Farm Forward encourages institutions and individuals to divest from industrial pig production. Interested? Learn more about how you can change institutional food policies and change your diet.

The term “culling” is a sanitized way of referring to the process of removing chickens from a flock and killing them. The shocking mass killing of day-old male chicks as part of the egg production industry is perhaps one of the best-known examples of culling. Beyond these male chicks, however, millions of other birds are annually culled from flocks around the U.S. for a variety of different reasons, using an array of different methods.

What is culling a chicken?

Culling a chicken is another way of saying that a chicken is being removed from a flock and killed. Chickens that are culled are typically killed on the farm rather than being shipped to a slaughterhouse or outside facility. Removing chickens from the flock by killing them is performed both routinely and in response to emergency situations. For example, during the height of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, millions of chickens were killed in order to depopulate farms, simply because slaughterhouses were not open or operating at a high enough capacity to slaughter them. Many of these chickens were smothered using foam or poisoned en masse with carbon dioxide.

The ongoing outbreak of avian influenza on farms across the United States is another situation that is leading to millions more chickens being killed. As of early December 2022, more than 52 million chickens and other birds have been killed as part of the response to the current outbreak of avian flu. The current outbreak is the worst in the nation’s history, with 46 states being affected.

Why do farmers cull chickens?

The largest expense for most chicken farms is feed, so if a bird is not going to make the farmer more money than they are spending on feed for that individual then the chicken is likely to be killed. There are a number of different reasons why a chicken may be judged as not being economically beneficial, including age, sex, or injury.

• Typically, layer hens are killed after about a year of laying due to a decrease in their productivity. Because these hens are raised as a group with other birds of the same age, productivity can be evaluated on a group basis and not based on the individual bird. For this reason, even if an individual bird is still producing well they may still be culled simply because their cohort of hens has dropped in productivity. During that year a single hen may lay 300 eggs or more, which takes a massive toll on her body. Fractures of the keel bone, which runs along the underside of the birds’ cavities, are common in laying hens, as the eggs are both very large and require a lot of the calcium that the mother hens consume, leading to weaker bones.1
• When a staff member notes that an individual bird seems ill or is seriously injured, for example unable to walk, that bird is likely to be removed from the flock and killed.
• Just a few decades ago, most chickens were raised both for their egg production and their eventual slaughter for meat. Today, however, there are two different kinds of chickens: those raised for their meat and those raised to produce eggs. In chickens raised for meat, also known as “broiler” chickens, there is no differentiation based on sex, as these chickens are not generally allowed to live long enough to produce eggs. When it comes to birds raised for laying eggs, male chicks are unable to lay eggs, so serve no purpose in the industrial system that has produced them. Male chicks are routinely killed before they can grow to be more than a few days old.

Why aren’t male chicks suitable for meat?

In the 1940s a contest was held by the USDA and a grocery store. The goal was to produce the largest chicken, who consumed the least amount of feed and had the best quality of meat. Since that time chickens have endured intense breeding programs intended to increase their profitability. Chickens raised for meat have grown larger as a result, and now have massive breasts and huge thighs, consuming about three-quarters less feed than their forefathers while growing at a much faster rate. Laying hens, by contrast, have been bred to produce an ever-increasing number of eggs.

Today’s broiler chickens are so much larger and grow so much faster than the breeds used to lay eggs that raising the male chicks of laying breeds would not only fail to produce a profit for the industry but actually end up costing them money, as the birds would cost more to feed than they would sell for.

How do farmers cull chickens?

There are several different ways that chickens are killed once they are removed from the flock. The method used depends on several factors, including the age of the chicken, the capacity and size of the farm, and the reason that they are being culled. If birds are being killed in a large number, for example to prevent the spread of disease or for depopulation, the method used is likely to be different than if a few birds are being killed at one time due to injuries.

Maceration

Maceration (also called “grinding,” “shredding,” or “mincing,”) is a common practice within the egg industry and is used as a means of dispatching day-old male chicks that are viewed by the industry as a by-product due to their inability to lay eggs. The process typically consists of placing the chicks onto a conveyor belt that ends in a large grinder into which the unsuspecting, fully conscious chicks fall and are torn apart. The practice is regarded as humane by those within the industry, but due to increasing outcry from the public, alternatives are being pursued to avoid the bad optics associated with the mass grinding of day-old chicks.2

Asphyxiation

Within the chicken production industry, asphyxiation goes by the term ventilation shutdown. There are several different types of ventilation shutdown: sealing off airflow alone, sealing off air and adding heat to induce heat stroke more quickly, and adding carbon dioxide which deprives the chickens of oxygen. This method of killing chickens tends to be used on a larger scale and has been employed in response to the ongoing avian flu outbreak in the United States. Millions of birds have already been killed as a result of the ongoing outbreak using this method.

Cervical dislocation

Cervical dislocation consists of snapping an individual chicken’s spinal cord. This method of culling birds is used when only a few birds are being killed at a time and is considered humane by the industry when performed by trained personnel. In the UK and the EU, only birds under 3 kilograms can be killed using this method; there is no such provision in the United States.

Electrocution

Electrocution is used both to stun birds prior to killing them in slaughterhouses and to stun or kill birds that have been culled from the flock. There are three different methods of electrocuting chickens: water-bath, head-only, and head-to-body. Water-bath methods tend to be used only for large-scale killing, and are also the common form of stunning in U.S. slaughterhouses. Head-only electrocution is just a stunning method and cannot kill birds as a method on its own, but both head-only and head-to-body electrocution are used in both large-scale killing and individual slaughter.3

Suffocation

Suffocation, such as by filling the cages in which the chickens are housed with foam, is another way that chickens are killed on a large scale. This method is considered a viable alternative despite research showing that birds killed using foam took longer to stop moving and produced more stress hormones than birds killed using other methods such as carbon dioxide exposure.4

Photo: Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals Media

Chicken meat is a dietary staple for many millions of people worldwide, and eggs are a standard breakfast for many of us. However, the true cost of these proteins includes the suffering of billions of living beings. This suffering is largely due to intensive breeding programs that prioritize profit over the welfare of chickens, leading to genetic predispositions that plague birds with ill health and short lives.

How long do chickens live on farms?

Chickens raised for meat, known within the industry as broilers, have been bred to grow extremely quickly. They the result of intensive hybrid breeding programs that use industrial-scale operations to isolate specific genetic markers to emphasize characteristics that are desirable for factory farming.  Chickens raised to produce eggs, known within the industry as laying hens, have been bred to lay an excessive number of eggs.

Chickens raised for meat

The lifespan of a chicken raised for meat can vary depending on his or her intended purpose. Yet the vast majority of chickens are slaughtered at less than 10 weeks, and sometimes as little as 5 weeks of age, weighing between 4.5 and 7 pounds. These fast-growing chickens are genetically engineered to prevent them from feeling sated, and many develop severe health problems by the time they are slaughtered as a result of overeating.

Laying hens

The lifespan of a laying hen is tied directly to their rate of egg production. Laying hens are most productive in the first two to three years of life. On commercial farms, hens are slaughtered when their productivity begins to decline, and often only after just one year.

How long do chickens live in the wild?

Chickens raised to produce food on factory farms are very different from wild fowl who are genetic predecessors or feral chickens that live in some countries.

Undomesticated chickens

Undomesticated chickens live from four to seven years on average. Undomesticated chickens enjoy other advantages over their domesticated cousins: wild individuals get to express their natural behaviors throughout their lifespan, roam free outdoors among family and friends, and raise their own young.

Junglefowl

Junglefowl, native to Southeast Asia, are a group of four species of wild birds in the same family as chickens. They tend to be much smaller than chickens and are naturally shy of human interaction. The red jungle fowl, the best-known species, tends to live for around 10 to 14 years.

How long do backyard chickens live?

The lifespan of backyard chickens varies according to a variety of factors, such as whether their keeper plans to slaughter them once their egg production drops, whether they are receiving proper medical care and nutrition, whether they have access to safe and sufficient housing, and above all the breed of the chicken. Different breeds can have wildly differing lifespans—with breeds that have been more modified for factory farming dying earlier—but backyard chickens kept to lay eggs who receive adequate care and are allowed to live out their full life can mostly be expected to live six to eight years or more.

How long do chickens live as pets?

Choosing to keep a chicken as a beloved household companion can provide over a decade of love and affection. Some chickens have been recorded as living into their teens or even twenties with appropriate care and attention. Chickens are intelligent creatures who are able to grasp the concept of time, for example, and are also extremely social with unique and complicated communication patterns. Each chicken has their own personality and when cared for as pets they tend to be very affectionate.

What do chickens usually die from?

The vast majority of chickens—those raised on factory farms as food—are killed when they are still extremely young, usually only a few weeks old. If an industrial hybrid bird were raised outside of a factory farm most would fall victim to their own genetics, as they are the result of decades of intensive breeding geared toward increasing their productivity with little regard for their welfare. In the case of chickens raised for meat, they have been bred to grow so quickly that their bodies are putting on up to 100 grams of weight every single day—that would be like a human baby gaining weight so quickly that they’d weigh as much as an adult male before their first birthday.

This exceptional growth means that while chickens are slaughtered younger than in the past, they grow to larger sizes. The speed at which they grow places the birds at greater risk of developing health problems, as their skeletal systems and organs are not adapted for them to grow so quickly. In fact, 57 percent of such chickens have severe walking problems due to their growth,1 causing them to live in excruciating pain in the days leading up to their slaughter.

Laying hens also experience suffering due to their genetics, as they have been bred to produce a greater number of larger eggs than their bodies are capable of handling. A modern laying hen can produce 300 eggs during an extended laying cycle, generally between 20 and 72 weeks of age. The eggs require calcium for the formation of the shell. Due to the sheer number of eggs being produced, calcium is taken from the bones of the mother hen resulting in bone loss and weakening. This increases the likelihood that a hen experiences fractures, specifically to her keel, the flexible wedge of cartilage connecting her breast muscles.

In addition to the suffering experienced by mother hens, male chicks also fall victim to the egg industry. Considered a byproduct by commercial hatcheries, male chicks are slaughtered soon after hatching. Because they have not been selectively bred to grow as quickly or to become as fat as chickens raised for meat, it is simply not economical for the farmers to feed them to slaughter later for food. Every year in the United States roughly 300 million chicks are killed by the commercial egg industry.

How long do chickens live before slaughter?

Chickens raised for meat, or broiler chickens, are generally slaughtered by the time they reach 5 weeks of age, and almost all by 10 weeks of age. In the United States alone, over nine billion chickens fall victim to the industry, accounting for 9 out of every 10 land animals killed for food in the country. The average young chicken slaughtered in 2019 had grown to be 6.39 pounds prior to their slaughter, due to the intensive breeding that prioritizes profit over the birds’ welfare.

What is a heritage chicken?

The genetics of chickens on factory farms have been selected for fast growth, leading to terrible animal suffering. Healthier genetics are found in heritage chicken breeds, which existed before the hybrid birds found on factory farms. To be classed as heritage, a bird must come from a breed recognized by the American Poultry Association, mate naturally instead of relying on artificially insemination, have the genetic ability to live a long life outdoors, and not reach slaughter weight before 16 weeks, allowing birds the time to develop strong skeletal systems capable of supporting their mass.

What factors affect a chicken’s lifespan?

Chickens’ lifespans are impacted by a number of factors relating to both them as individuals and the environment in which they are housed. Below we discuss the lifespan for modern hybrid chickens raised to industry standards for meat and eggs.

Sex

The sex of a chicken plays a role in determining their lifespan. A hen being raised to produce eggs is likely to be kept alive for one lay cycle, then killed when her productivity declines at around one year of age. Male chicks of the same breed are likely to be killed shortly after hatching due to their inability to lay eggs.

Disease

Diseases often cut down the life expectancy of a chicken dramatically. The ongoing 2022 highly pathogenic avian flu outbreak has affected more than 40 million chickens in the U.S. The USDA guidance for handling infected chickens is to “eradicate the disease,” a goal that is frequently accomplished through mass slaughter. Other diseases, such as coccidiosis, are endemic in industrial poultry production and often shorten the lives of birds.

Housing

Housing is likely to play a role in the life expectancy of birds. Birds that have ample space to move around, are protected from predators, and have a clean environment are likely to live longer than chickens that do not.

Breed

Chickens in commercial production systems today are hybrids that are only able to survive for a very short amount of time due to the strain their genetics place on their bodies. There are specific breeds known as heritage chickens that are able to live longer, healthier lives due to their slower growth rate and better genetics, but these birds are not used in industrial animal agriculture.

Environment

The environment a bird grows up in has an impact on his or her life expectancy. Though the mortality rate for chickens on factory farms is always high, it can be affected by the season, for example, with deaths more common in periods of heat stress or cold weather.

Diet and nutrition

Diet and nutrition play an important role in the health and life expectancy of chickens. If chickens are offered a well-balanced diet rich in nutrients they are likely to live longer than birds offered diets high in calories intended to help them grow larger.

Veterinary care

Providing proper veterinary care for chickens is an essential part of helping them live a full and happy life.

Genetics

The vast majority of chickens being raised in the United States today would fall victim to their own genetics if they were not slaughtered at a very young age. Chickens raised specifically for meat grow so quickly that their bodies are not able to support them. Their genetic predisposition for rapid growth leads to conditions such as ascites, an inability of their heart and lungs to supply enough oxygen for their body. This condition leads to heart attacks as the chickens’ hearts attempt to work overtime to pump oxygenated blood through the overgrown body of the birds.

Slaughter

Slaughter is the definitive end to life for billions of birds in the U.S. alone every year. For chickens raised for meat, slaughter takes place at around 7 weeks of age. For hens raised to lay eggs, slaughter usually happens after the first laying cycle, around the time the birds turn one year old..

How old is the oldest chicken?

The first chicken to receive the designation of World’s Oldest Living Chicken by Guinness World Records was Matilda, who lived to be 16 years old. It was speculated that she lived so long because she was kept indoors and never laid eggs. She was dethroned by Muffy from Maryland who died in 2011 after reaching 22 years old.

Conclusion

Chicken breeding, not only in the United States but around the world, is primarily controlled by just two companies: Aviagen and Cobb. These companies breed chickens to maximize their profit with little regard to the welfare of the birds themselves. As a result, the chickens often endure horrendous suffering during their short lives. By choosing to raise heritage breeds instead of hybrids, these companies could improve the welfare and lifespan of billions of chickens every year.

Choosing to reduce our consumption of meat as far as possible is essential if we are to reduce the massive suffering that farmed chickens experience and the negative effects that large-scale animal agriculture has on society and the environment. If we do choose to consume chicken, it’s best to purchase from farms that raise heritage chickens with meaningful welfare certifications, and to be aware of the humanewashing that risks giving unsustainable industrial chicken farming a new lease of life.

Why reduce meat consumption?

There are a number of reasons for reducing meat consumption at home, and just as many for institutions  like businesses, restaurants, universities, and religious and community centers. Reducing the number of animals we consume, and by association that we farm, reduces many negative impacts on the environment, protects against the spread of zoonotic diseases, lowers the risk of future pandemics, and has the potential to prevent a vast amount of unnecessary animal suffering.

Reducing meat can seem daunting, but millions of people and thousands of institutions are taking steps to increase the amount of plant-based foods they eat. You too can change your diet to reduce meat consumption, and you can even help institutions shift, multiplying your impact.

What happens when you reduce meat intake?

Many have found that whether they choose to purchase genuinely higher welfare meat  or reduce meat consumption—or both—their outlook on life brightens as they reduce participation in exploitative systems and take these positive steps toward a future they can be proud of. Many may find reducing animal products a more accessible choice than locating and affording the highest welfare animal products. Reducing animal products in favor of plant-based foods prevents the suffering of hundreds of animals, reduces contributions to water and air pollution, and may reduce risks of cancer and heart disease.

Is reducing meat consumption healthy?

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends a plant-based diet that is low in salt, saturated fats, and added sugars as part of a healthy lifestyle. This is in large part due to the links that have been established between meat consumption and heart disease, cancer risk, and diabetes.

If making the switch to plant-based eating for health reasons, it is important to keep in mind that there is such a thing as an unhealthy plant-based diet that replaces animal-derived ingredients with highly processed alternatives.1

How to reduce meat consumption: Individual strategies

Reducing meat consumption can seem like a daunting challenge. However, when reducing meat consumption you can take a number of steps to make sure that your body is even more nourished and fulfilled as it ever was before, while still eating foods that you enjoy.

Try meatless meals

One of the first changes you can make is to start making meals that are meatless. Perhaps you could choose to eat a fully meat-free meal every day for lunch, or maybe it’s more accessible for you to remove meat completely for one or two days a week. Some have found success with not eating meat before dinner. Regardless of the strategy you choose as you begin introducing meatless and animal product-free meals into your routine, the important thing is to take the first step.

Reduce meat at each meal

Another method to reduce the meat you consume is to simply choose to reduce the amount of meat at every meal. Instead of eating a double burger, switch to a single with the goal of eventually switching to a plant-based patty. Instead of choosing a large, expensive steak, save your wallet and reduce your impact on the environment by opting for a more modest cut and filling most of your plate with plants.

Buy a vegetarian or plant-based cookbook

There are a number of wonderful vegetarian and fully plant-based cookbook options available. Whether you love fast food and want to be able to enjoy plant-based versions of your favorite dishes, or you’re interested in traditional soul food cooking, or you simply want a solid book that serves as a good introduction to plant-based cooking, there’s a cookbook out there for you. If books aren’t your thing, there are tons of veganized recipes for any dish imaginable available online, via the plethora of plant-based recipe blogs.

Make a plan to eat less meat

Perhaps one of the most important aspects of reducing your meat consumption is to be intentional. While making the transition to eating less meat, it is easiest to slip up when you are hungry and simply want something to eat. Having a collection of simple recipes, meals, snacks, and restaurants with options you genuinely enjoy handy is essential for moments when you’re just hungry and want something delicious. And remember that it’s not all-or-nothing; if you eat meat in a moment where you had intended to eat something plant-based, just view it as part of the process and go back to your intention.

Educate yourself about meat production

Knowing the “why” behind your meat consumption reduction makes it more likely that you’ll stick to your new eating pattern. Whether your reason is the farmed animals themselves, the environmental impact of the industry, or personal or public health, reminding yourself often is a great habit when just starting out.

How to eat less meat and still get protein

One of the most commonly held concerns about reducing the amount of meat we consume is whether or not we can get enough protein. This is commonly referred to as the vegetarian protein myth. The many vegan bodybuilders that follow a vegan diet but still excel at packing on pounds of pure muscle are evidence of just how much protein you can eat without any animal products at all.

How much protein do you need?

Most people are fine consuming 0.36 grams of protein for every pound of body weight. Having a conversation with a registered dietitian about your lifestyle and health goals can help determine a more tailored suggestion for you.

How to reduce meat consumption: Institutional strategies

In addition to the steps that we can take as individuals to reduce our meat consumption, there are also steps that we can take to help institute plant-based tendencies on a larger scale.

Set plant-based as the default

Making plant-based foods the easy choice through menu design, cafeteria layout, or subtle substitutions, while still giving people the choice of eating animal products, nudges diners to make choices that are better for animals, health, and the climate and environment. For example, at a conference, having people opt into choosing a meat option instead of having them opt into a vegetarian or vegan option is a powerful tool for reducing meat consumption on a large scale. Restaurants, events, conferences, and places of business seeking to be more environmentally friendly can all go far by shifting the default. DefaultVeg is one strategy that can help make the transition a little more smooth.

Leadership Circle

Farm Forward’s Leadership Circle exists to help businesses, organizations, and schools put their money where their mouth is and choose supply chain options that fit with their values and a vision of a greener, and more sustainable future with less animal suffering. Through the program we provide free consulting, tools, and recognition to support members as they move toward a better supply chain.

Be intentional about sourcing

Institutions have traditionally sourced food with value, taste, nutrition, visual appeal, and culture in mind. More and more institutions are adding environmental impact to that list. When institutions take their sourcing seriously, they contribute to positive societal shifts and become part of building a better planet for everyone.

How does reducing meat consumption benefit the environment?

In addition to its benefits for individual health, public health, and farmed animal welfare, reducing and even eliminating the meat we consume as part of our diets is one of the most impactful steps we can take as individuals to reduce our negative impacts on the environment and our contributions to climate change. Moving away from a diet in which meat plays a central role can reduce greenhouse gas emissions, increase land availability, save water, improve soil health, and more.

1. Reducing meat consumption lowers greenhouse gas emissions

Western nonvegetarian diets have been associated with greenhouse gas emissions 59 percent higher than those of vegetarian diets. This is in large part due to the quantities of greenhouse gasses that are emitted to produce even a small amount of meat—which can account for almost half of emissions within a typical nonvegetarian diet.2 Of all food items, the production of beef leads to the greatest quantity of emissions, with each kilogram of beef being responsible for 99.48 kilograms of CO2-equivalent gasses.

2. Reducing meat consumption increases biodiversity

Meat takes a massive amount of land to produce. Space is required not just for the animals being raised for food to live on, but also for planting and growing crops for their feed. As countries around the world increase in wealth, their meat consumption is going up, causing meat producers to continue the destruction of some of the most biodiverse areas on the planet—including the Amazon rainforest—and threatening an increasing number of species with extinction.

3. Reducing meat consumption saves water

Producing meat products requires a large amount of water. For example, producing one kilogram of shrimp requires 3,515 liters of water. On top of that, meat production also plays a large role in polluting water systems. Much of this pollution stems from the manure produced by the animals, the chemicals applied to the fields of crops used to feed them, and the antibiotics and hormones administered to them.

4. Reducing meat consumption reduces deforestation

Right now the Amazon rainforest is being destroyed. Estimates suggest that already 17 percent of the forest, which is one of the most biologically diverse areas on the planet, has been lost. While this might not seem like a lot, it is perilously close to a tipping point that would see the ecosystem begin to give way to savanna.

The biggest driver of Amazon deforestation in Brazil is cattle ranching, which is behind 80 percent of tree cover loss. Within Brazil, agribusiness enterprises account for nearly a quarter of the country’s GDP, and in 2018, $6 billion worth of beef was exported to other countries, making the cattle industry a lucrative business.

5. Reducing meat consumption decreases soil degradation

Some of the most drought-prone areas in the United States are also home to thousands of cattle. Overgrazing is one of the leading causes of soil degradation, with drought-prone areas the most at risk. Degraded soils store less carbon, damaging one of our most important resources in the effort to lessen and slow climate change.

6. Reducing meat consumption will free up land for growing food for humans

About half of all habitable land is used for agriculture. Of this, two-thirds is used for animal agriculture—whether that be for dairy, eggs, or meat. Despite this, only 18 percent of the calories and 37 percent of the protein we consume come from animal sources. If humanity moved away from consuming animal products and instead used that land to grow plant foods intended for direct human consumption, we could reduce the amount of land needed for agriculture by a whopping 75 percent. This would free up three billion hectares of land for other uses such as reforestation.

7. Reducing meat consumption will reduce meat waste

Meat is an incredibly inefficient source of calories. For example, beef has a caloric efficiency of merely 2 percent, so for every 100 calories that go into producing beef only 2 calories of beef are actually produced. This means that a large amount of the calories that we pour into producing meat are simply wasted.

From a food waste perspective, in the United States 26 percent of meat, poultry, and fish are thrown away by consumers or retail outlets. This equates to billions of animals who were slaughtered only to be trashed. On top of the waste of life this represents, it also exacts a massive, and completely unnecessary, toll on the environment.

Conclusion

Reducing and even eliminating animal product consumption is one of the most impactful choices most individuals and institutions can make when it comes to animal suffering, individual and public health, and environmental degradation and climate change. Reducing meat intake can seem daunting, but millions of people and thousands of institutions have walked this path before you! You too can change your diet, and you can even help institutions shift, multiplying your impact.

People commonly believe that kosher production is different from the rest of conventional industrial farming, and that animals raised and slaughtered for the kosher market are treated better than those destined for non-kosher markets. In reality, virtually all kosher products, including all those sold in grocery stores, come from factory farms with abysmal conditions. How do we know?

First, it’s important to understand that kosher certifications lack purview over how animals are bred, treated, and handled prior to slaughter. Second, kosher certification is a modern invention, created to respond to technological advancement in food production. Third, traditional kosher law existed in a different context with fundamentally different agricultural practices–kosher production today is part and parcel of the United States’ mainstream animal farming model, or CAFOs (confined animal feeding operations).

Most Animals Used in the Kosher Industry Live on CAFOs

Calculations from the USDA suggest that more than 99 percent of animals raised for food in the United States are raised on factory farms.((Percentage of confinement farms was calculated by the Sentience Institute.)) Broiler chickens, or birds raised specifically for meat production rather than egg-laying, account for over 90% of the land animals raised for food in the US.((The United States is the world’s leading chicken producer.)) Like the rest of the country, Jewish and kosher-keeping households that consume meat are mostly eating chickens—in quantities more than one hundred times what Americans ate per capita a century ago.((Striffler, Chicken: The Dangerous Transformation of America’s Favorite Food))

These are not your grandparents’ chickens; instead of breeding animals for resiliency outdoors, healthy immune systems, and strong bones and muscles, the trademark of factory-farmed chickens today is their highly manipulated genetics which cause them to grow unnaturally fast and so large that they struggle to support their own weight. There are no meaningful genetic differences between poultry raised for kosher and non-kosher markets. With the help of drugs, corporate-owned operations keep most birds alive long enough to reach market weight at 6-8 weeks–twice as fast as in the 1950s.

Kosher operations rely on industrial confinement systems that keep hundreds of thousands of birds indoors in filthy, crowded conditions—this is the only way companies can churn out the volume of meat they purvey on a regular basis. A steady supply of kosher chicken is made possible by companies like KJ Poultry, which slaughters 40,000 birds a day, Agri Star (formerly Agriprocessors), which slaughters 50,000 birds a day, and Empire Kosher, which slaughters 65,000 birds a day. And while the scale and speed at which workers process animals has real human health((For example, Iowa OSHA recently fined Agri Star for safety violations found after a February 2021 explosion injured two employees. Related hazards were cited in a reported worker injury just days before. )) and animal welfare costs, processing plants only represent a fraction of the production process. The jarring pace and scale of production begins with day-to-day operations at breeding houses and confined feeding facilities, over which kosher slaughter authorities have no direct supervision.

While kosher certification regulates slaughter, ultimately, it’s not how animals die that qualifies their lives as “factory farmed” but rather the conditions they lived in. The federal government defines a factory farm or CAFO based on the number of animal “units” living in a confined space for more than 45 days out of the year. Stocking density varies by species, but the cramped quarters of all CAFOs severely restricts animals’ freedom. While only 1,000 heads of cattle qualify as a CAFO, broiler chicken operations begin at 125,000—the human population of Hartford, Connecticut—and grow however large animal agriculture can manage, creeping ever closer to the one million mark. As dystopian as a poultry metropolis feels, the number of animals raised in densely populated cages, lots, and pens is only one troubling aspect of industrial animal agriculture.

Photo: Lukas Vincour / Zvířata Nejíme / We Animals Media

Modern-day chickens raised for meat, called “broilers,” are a far cry from chickens just a few decades ago. They consume less food, grow more quickly, and reach a much larger size. The way that chickens are farmed  for their meat today is the result of intense breeding programs that were kickstarted with a contest run by a grocery store in the mid-20th century. As a result of all the ingenuity and invention that has gone into their genetics, chickens suffer immensely during their short lives, and today’s massive scale of chicken production wreaks havoc on the environment.

Broiler chicken history

Up to the early 20th century, chickens were “dual purpose” and raised primarily in backyards to supply both eggs and meat to their caretakers and communities. Unlike today, there were not two separate types of chickens, one for laying eggs and one for meat. This differentiation started in the 1920s but really took off in 1945 due to the “Chicken of Tomorrow” contest organized by the USDA and sponsored by the grocer A&P, which awarded prizes to the flocks that were judged as having the best meat, most efficient feed conversion ratio, and highest growth rate. In order to win, farmers started breeding the largest male and female chickens together, to increase the size of their offspring. The contest enabled the broiler breeder companies that we know today, such as Cobb, Vantress (now collectively Cobb-Vantress), and Hubbard to establish themselves.

By the 1980s and early 1990s, producers were using ever more sophisticated techniques to breed the fast-growing chickens found on farms today—chickens that consume less food but grow larger and faster than birds just 40 years ago. Within less than two generations, chickens raised for meat went from birds pecking around in a neighbor’s backyard to being packed into warehouses by the thousands, unable to naturally breed without being starved.

What birds are considered broiler chickens?

Broiler chickens are those which are raised for their meat. Today there are two companies that control the genetics of most broiler chickens: Aviagen and Cobb-Vantress. Aviagen has bred the Ross line of chickens, which they boast “is the world’s number one broiler breeder brand.” Meanwhile, Cobb-Vantress boasts that their premier line of broiler chickens, the Cobb, is “the world’s most efficient broiler.” Regardless of which line an individual chicken is born from, they experience great suffering that is directly caused by the intense breeding that has taken place in the very recent history of their family tree.

Broiler chicken characteristics

Broiler chickens share a variety of common characteristics. Visually they sport almost universally white feathers. Looking past their physical appearance, however, you can also find a number of similarities in their health and even genetics. When it comes to the actual genetic makeup of broiler chickens, they are all very similar, placing them at a greater risk of disease transmission. On the health front, because of their swift growth rate, broiler chickens are likely to develop a range of issues such as ascites and sudden death syndrome.

What’s the difference between broiler and layer chickens?

Though just a few decades ago chickens were raised for both their meat and the eggs they would lay, today there are specific breeds intended for each purpose. Broiler chickens, those raised to be slaughtered for their meat, grow very large, very quickly. These chickens are usually slaughtered at about seven weeks old in the United States, by which time they have already grown to be about 6.5 pounds. Laying hens, on the other hand, typically live for about 72 weeks before their production drops and they are slaughtered. During peak production they may lay 300 eggs or more a year.

Why are they called broiler chickens?

Broiler chickens, also called “broiler-fryers,” originally got their name from a preparation method common for their meat due to their young age and their more tender flesh. When chickens are slaughtered at an older age, they may be called a “roaster.”

Broiler chicken farming

The reality for Modern broiler chicken farmers are often locked into predatory contracts with large corporations, competing against other farmers to produce the heaviest chickens with the least amount of feed. The farmers that don’t come out on top often struggle to get by, as the corporations require increasingly expensive upgrades to the farm facilities. Much of the poultry industry is run as a “tournament system,” where producers compete against their neighbors and pay is based in part on how much you produce compared to others in your area. This system has left many chicken farmers deeply in debt and has been widely criticized by farmers as predatory.

Will broiler chickens lay eggs?

Historically, chickens eaten for their meat were often from the same dual-purpose breed as laying hens. Even breeds raised primarily for meat, like the Barred Rock, produced edible eggs. Yet if left to their own devices, modern broiler chickens would quickly cease to exist because they are not able to breed without human intervention. Broiler chickens have been bred to rapidly grow to sizes far beyond the range of the chickens raised for food even a generation ago. Birds bred for fast growth lead to medical complications that make breeding, laying eggs, and even living long enough to reach maturity difficult. The birds used to breed broiler chickens need to have their feed restricted to avoid growing to a size that would stop them mating and laying, which means that they live in a state of constant hunger induced by their genetics.1

How long does it take to raise a broiler chicken?

According to the National Chicken Council, modern broiler chickens are slaughtered at an average of 47 days old, having already reached a weight of about 6.5 pounds. They consume about 1.8 pounds of feed for each pound of weight they gain. The modern rate of growth is much faster than it was in 1940, prior to the “Chicken of Tomorrow” contest that launched the genetic modification of chickens via breeding into full swing. In 1940, chickens were slaughtered at an average age of 85 days, having reached about 2.9 pounds, and after consuming approximately 4 pounds of feed for every pound of weight gained.

How long does it take for a broiler chicken to mature?

Broiler chickens are not mature when they are slaughtered at an average age of just 47 days, or less than 7 weeks old. In fact, for Cobb chickens puberty doesn’t even start until they are 12 weeks old. Between 16 and 20 weeks they are in their “grower phase” in which hens increase their weight by a third and reach maturity.

How long do broiler chickens live?

The average broiler chicken is slaughtered at 47 days old. Without very particular care and feed withholding, the likelihood of mortality due to health problems related to their growth or genetics increases from that point onward.

Broiler chicken side effects

Modern broiler chickens are touted by the industry as being extremely efficient “products” within the food system. This level of efficiency comes at great cost, for the birds themselves and the environment as well.

Welfare issues

Crowding

Overcrowding is a huge difficulty for many broiler chicken barns. Such a living situation leads to an increase in inflammation and a decrease in macrophage activity, making the birds more susceptible to disease.2

Transport

For transport to the slaughterhouse, birds are routinely stuffed into crates alongside other birds before the crate is loaded onto a truck. This practice leads to painful bruising, dehydration, and even death.

Slaughter

Once chickens have reached the slaughterhouse, they are killed. Often this process is rushed and rough due to workers being required to move through the process quickly. As a result, birds endure immense suffering, such as not being stunned before slaughter, or even not being slaughtered before they are drowned in scalding hot water.

Bird health issues

Cardiovascular dysfunction

Due to their fast growth, broiler birds often experience heart problems, because their hearts are unable to meet the demands of their bodies.

Integument lesions

Overcrowding is one of the main causes of skin lesions in broiler chickens. This is due to a greater incidence of trampling when seeking food and water. Another source of skin lesions is aggression between chickens.

Ocular dysfunction

Chickens have very sensitive eyes and rely heavily on their sight. The high levels of ammonia in chicken barns can lead to painful conditions such as conjunctivitis, damage to the cornea, and swelling of their eyelids.3

Skeletal dysfunction

A number of different skeletal disorders can be found in broiler chickens, including leg deformities and deformities of the spinal column. Many of these conditions are caused by the swift growth of the birds.

Environmental issues

Ammonia

Ammonia, which contains nitrogen, is released in the droppings of the thousands of chickens housed in broiler factory farms. This nitrogen can ultimately enter waterways and have serious effects on the health of aquatic ecosystems, causing algal blooms and creating dead zones with depleted oxygen levels.

Greenhouse gas emissions

The chicken production sector, including both eggs and meat, releases 0.6 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent greenhouse gases every year. This accounts for 8 percent of emissions from the entire animal agriculture sector.

Manure

Estimates suggest that the poultry farms in North Carolina alone produce five million tons of waste every year, threatening the air and water quality of the surrounding area due to the high levels of nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus the manure contains.

Animals raised for food face a number of welfare issues. Most of these issues are the result of attempts to reduce expenses while increasing profit. Toward this end, animals are placed in uncomfortable and dangerous situations, mutilated, and bred in a manner that results in serious health issues. No animal raised for food, whether as large as a dairy cow or as small as a laying hen, is exempt from the numerous welfare issues caused by standard industry practices.

Farmed animal welfare issues

Chickens

Every year billions of chickens are raised and slaughtered for food in the United States. In just September 2022, over 800 million chickens were slaughtered. The sheer number of chickens being cycled through U.S. farms  leads to suffering on a massive scale. Chickens across both the egg and meat industries are impacted by welfare standards that even the most lack basic protections against suffering.

Chick culling

Within the egg industry, male chicks are considered useless because they cannot lay. The male birds are also viewed as useless for meat, since they do not grow as large or as quickly as so-called “broiler” chickens bred specifically for meat production. For these reasons they are killed at just a few hours old. Often this process involves a grinder  into which they are thrown without any sedation or pain management.

Beak trimming

Beak trimming, also called debeaking, means the removal of a quarter to a third of a chicken’s beak. The procedure can be done using a hot blade, or via other mechanical, electrical, or infra-red methods. It is most often performed as a means of reducing pecking and cannibalism, which is common in environments where birds have no outlets for common behaviors like pecking. The practice causes pain and behavioral changes that will impact the bird for the rest of their lives.

Battery cages

Imagine living your entire life as a hen with less space than a piece of printer paper to stand on and explore. That’s the sad reality for chickens housed in battery cages, whose natural behaviors are almost entirely curtailed. Though many institutions are making the shift toward less confining housing systems, hundreds of millions of chickens are still subject to the self-evident cruelty of battery cages.

Overcrowding

If you’ve seen an image or video taken from inside a chicken farm, you’ve likely been struck by how many chickens are packed together within such a small space. This is the sad reality of most chicken farms, and a requirement for factory farms, which in order to be considered a large concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) must contain at least 30,000 birds, with many having several hundred thousand. The overcrowding that these chickens endure places them at heightened risk of developing diseases.1

Fast growth

The breeds of chicken commonly raised for their meat have been genetically modified to grow by 50 grams a day or more. Their monstrous growth rate leads to severe health issues, including hock burns, leg abnormalities, and higher mortality rates.2

Feed restriction of breeds

The birds who parent the broiler chickens who are killed for meat suffer from the same genetic problems as their young. This means that if they were fed enough to satiate their hunger, they would grow to such a size that they would be unable to survive long enough to safely breed and lay fertilized eggs. The solution to this, per industry professionals, is to restrict their feed so that they are in a constant state of hunger.

Genetics and breeder birds

The chickens widely used to produce food have been bred over hundreds of generations to maximize profit with little regard for their welfare. This results in laying hens who produce so many eggs that their bones break, and chickens raised for meat who grow so quickly that they suffer serious medical conditions as a result.

Transport and slaughter

During transport birds are exposed to extreme temperatures and long distances, often without any breaks to rest or recoup energy. These conditions result in stress, weight loss, and for many of them, death. Those that do make it all the way to their destination face the slaughterhouse, where swift production lines often result in broken legs and being boiled awake and alive.

Pigs

In 2021, 129 million pigs were slaughtered at federally inspected facilities in the United States. Of these, just 14 slaughterhouses were responsible for killing 58 percent of them, with the remaining 42 percent slaughtered by the other 630 facilities.

Sow stalls and gestation crates

Sow stalls and gestation crates are two names for the same housing system. During their pregnancy, female pigs are housed in gestation crates so small that they cannot even turn around. The housing system leads to confinement injuries such as pressure sores, ulcers, and abrasions as well as an increase in problem behaviors including biting, chewing, and licking. The psychological toll that gestation crates take is almost unimaginable.

Overcrowding

Overcrowding for pigs can lead to welfare issues such as tail biting. To prevent this behavior, some farmers dock the tails of piglets, but pigs will often simply bite the stump of the tail or ears instead.

Farrowing crates

Once a mother pig is ready to give birth she is moved to a farrowing crate. Like gestation crates, farrowing crates prevent the mother pig from turning around and only allow her to move slightly forward and backward. The primary reason the crates are used is to prevent the mother pig from crushing her babies.

Early weaning

Segregated early weaning is a common practice within commercial facilities raising pigs, as it reduces disease transmission from older pigs to the piglets and increases the mother pigs’ reproductive efficiency. However, the practice leads to increased immunological, environmental, and nutritional stress due to piglets being separated from the mothers too soon.3

Transport and slaughter

The process of transporting and slaughtering pigs is highly traumatic for the pigs. On the trucks, pigs run the risk of heat stroke, heart failure, and exhaustion. The experience prior to slaughter can be so stressful that it results in physical changes to the flesh of the pig. During slaughter, the stunning apparatus may fail due to operator error, meaning that the pig is conscious and aware of being slaughtered.

Cattle

In 2021, 33.9 million cattle were slaughtered in the United States. This represents a 3 percent increase in the number of cattle slaughtered from 2020. Before their slaughter, they endure a large amount of suffering in the form of health issues and body mutilation.

Disbudding

Disbudding means the destruction or removal of the cells that will produce horns before they adhere to the skull. The procedure is usually performed before a calf is 8 weeks old, by farm staff, not veterinarians, and can be done using a hot iron or caustic paste. Because the procedure is painful, pain management is suggested by veterinary professionals, but it is not required.

Housing

The housing system that cattle live in has significant impacts on their welfare.4 Many cattle live in facilities with such a small amount of space per animal that they express far fewer natural behaviors than cattle who have a little more room or those who are raised on pasture. Factors such as the enrichment offered, flooring type, and shade provided all have welfare implications for cattle.

Lameness, mastitis, and infertility

Mastitis and lameness can both impact the fertility of a cow. Mastitis—a painful condition involving inflammation of the mammary tissue—reduces fertility due to the secretion of certain lipids which regulate the cow’s menstrual cycle. Lameness leads to reduced fertility by negatively impacting the condition of the cow who is likely to lose weight and stop eating as much.

Diet and hormones

Giving hormones to cattle as an additive in their diet or implanted directly into the animal has long been standard practice on animal farms. Hormones are offered for a variety of reasons including to promote growth or milk production. The use of some of these hormones can lead to the development of some diseases such as mastitis in cattle.5

Slaughtering

The welfare implications of slaughter in any capacity are as severe as one might imagine. For cattle, in addition to the slaughter itself, they are exposed to noise, unfamiliar humans and animals, transport, high temperatures, water and food deprivation, and a number of other factors that all contribute to high stress.6

Veal calves

Male calves birthed by dairy cows make up most of the veal industry. The dairy industry makes the veal industry possible. The calves raised as “bob” veal—to 16 to 20 weeks of age—are given a milk replacer diet intentionally deficient in iron to make their meat paler and more desirable. This leads to anemia and other health issues.

Turkeys

In just September 2022, over 17 million turkeys were slaughtered in the United States.

Overcrowding

Feather pecking and cannibalism are serious potential outcomes of overcrowding in turkeys. These behaviors, once learned by one turkey, are likely to spread across the barn due to the birds’ tendency to imitate.

Breeding

Because large breasts and legs lead to larger profits, turkeys have been bred for these traits, leading to modern animals who are incapable of breeding on their own and must be artificially inseminated instead.

Slaughter

This year thousands of turkeys in the U.S. were slaughtered due to the spread of avian flu in factory farms. These birds cannot be sold to the public and instead are simply treated as waste. Factory farms provide the ideal environment for the spread of such diseases due to the genetic similarity and sheer numbers of birds.

Catching and transport

Turkeys are herded into crates, then often face long journeys and harsh temperatures when they are being moved to slaughterhouses.

Ducks

In the United States and EU, more than 200 million Pekin ducks are slaughtered every year. These ducks face many of the same environmental conditions and genetic maladies that cause suffering in the chicken and turkey industry, but many are also force-fed in order to fatten their livers which will then be sold as foie gras. Like other animals farmed en masse, they endure a variety of welfare issues including housing, slaughter, and illness.7

Aquatic animals

Billions of fish and other aquatic animals are killed every year to support the food production industry. Despite recent research demonstrating that they are capable of experiencing pain, they are often left to suffocate slowly out of the water or be crushed by the bodies of other fish inside nets.

How does animal welfare affect farmers?

In many situations, corporations’ profits increase when they disregard animal welfare. For example, confining pigs to crates, crowding chickens into battery cages, and genetically modifying animals to eat less but grow faster all reduce costs and increase profits at the expense of animal welfare. Unfortunately, industrial animal agriculture is economically structured to prioritize profits no matter the cost to animal welfare. Corporations are only incentivized to improve animal welfare in cases where increased animal welfare correlates with greater profits. For example, gentler handling while being unloaded at the slaughterhouse can lead to less damage to the flesh of the animal being slaughtered.

In addition to some economic benefits, improving welfare would also reduce the risk of disease spread and illness. Modern factory farms provide the ideal environment for the spread of disease not only among the animals, but also from the animals to the people employed. Some changes that happen to be good for animal welfare, such as reducing stocking density, opting for animals with more diverse and stronger genetics, and ensuring housing conditions are clean and diet is healthy, would also  help prevent the spread of zoonotic disease from animals to people. However, because these changes do not correlate with increased profits by food animal companies, they are unlikely to be pursued in the absence of legislation.

How you can help farmed animals

One of the most impactful steps we can take as individuals to help farmed animals is to reduce, and eventually eliminate, them from our diets. Eating animals or the food products that they are raised to produce, such as eggs and cheese, contributes to the suffering of farmed animals. Reaching for plant-based alternatives shifts the economic incentive that your money gives suppliers toward animal-free products.

We depend on clean water every day of our lives, to drink, cook, and wash. Yet despite our dependence on a steady supply of clean water for both our health and our convenience, we allow it to be compromised via pollution. One of the largest drivers of water pollution is agriculture, and specifically animal agriculture, due to the overwhelming amount of waste created as a byproduct of the production of animal-derived food. This contamination has serious consequences for the health of humans, the environment, and wild animals.

What is agricultural pollution?

Agricultural pollution constitutes the contamination of water, air, and other resources caused by the processes we use to produce food. Animal agriculture ranks within the top three industries causing the most severe environmental problems facing us today at every scale one considers, from local effects to global ramifications, and that includes water degradation.1 Growing crops to be fed to animals is a major contributor to water pollution due to the sheer size of the industry, the many different chemicals employed, and the enormous amount of fresh water it uses. Factory farms, in which animals are packed together on small areas of land by the thousands or tens of thousands, play a large role in polluting water, as the waste from these animals makes it into waterways, groundwater, and open ocean.

Agriculture also is a major contributor to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). Food production as a whole accounts for about a quarter of all human-caused GHGs. Of this total, livestock and fisheries (including production of feed and land use) account for 53 percent of agricultural GHGs.

How does animal agriculture pollute water?

Industrial animal agriculture

The primary way that industrial animal farms contribute to water pollution is through waste storage. Factory farms house thousands or tens of thousands of animals in a relatively small area. All of these animals produce waste. The waste is high in nutrients, including nitrates, which have now become the most common contaminant in the world’s groundwater aquifers. In recent years, veterinary medicines have also made their way into our drinking water due to their heavy use within animal agriculture.2

Industrial crop production

Of the calories from crops produced around the world only 55 percent go directly to humans for consumption. About 36 percent of calories from crops are fed to animals raised for meat. Crop production has a massive impact on the water supply due to the heavy use of pesticides and fertilizers that is standard practice within the modern food production industry. These chemicals make their way into waterways when soil is washed off fields.

How does animal agriculture affect water?

Billions of animals are raised for food around the world. With so many individuals being born, living, and then being killed in a constant cycle that is kept as short as possible to maximize profits, it comes as no surprise that the impact of animal agriculture on water is considerable. Factory farms’ contributions to water pollution stem from the animals and their waste, the operations of the farms, and the production of food for the animals. The pollution caused by these facilities has far-reaching impacts, contributing to disease outbreaks, driving algal blooms, and negatively impacting economies that depend on clean water.

Algal blooms, dead zones, and acidification

Animal agriculture has a major impact on surface water by encouraging the formation of algal blooms and dead zones. Animal agriculture produces large amounts of waste, which is rich in phosphorus and nitrogen. When these nutrients make their way into the water, they increase the likelihood and severity of algal blooms. When the algae of such a bloom eventually die, their decomposition takes with it the oxygen in the water, which results in a mass die-off of the plant and animal species in the impacted area. In addition to the loss of life associated with algal blooms, they can be devastating for local economies and individuals that depend on the water for their incomes.

Heavy metal contamination

Agriculture contributes to the presence of heavy metals in water. Though there are many industrial sources of such contamination, fertilizer, pesticides, manure, and irrigation play significant roles. Heavy metal exposure has been linked to a number of health conditions including weakened bones, liver and lung damage, and cancer.

Nitrates and other contaminants in drinking water

Animal agriculture has been repeatedly recognized as one of the main sources of nitrates in water supplies. The presence of nitrates, even in small amounts, can cause serious medical conditions such as birth defects, thyroid disease, and colorectal cancer.3 Agriculture also contaminates drinking water with other chemicals from fertilizers and pesticides, notably phosphorus.

Pathogen contamination and disease outbreaks

A variety of zoonotic diseases can be spread from animals being raised for food to humans and other animal populations via water. One of the major ways that such diseases are introduced to water is through the fecal matter of an infected animal. Diseases that can be transmitted this way include E. coli and Cryptosporidium.4

How does water pollution affect animals?

Wild animals are seriously impacted by water pollution. Whether they spend their lives in the air, in the water, or on land, wild animals endure some of the worst impacts of polluted water systems.

Birds

Many birds depend on waterways for their food supply. When the water becomes polluted, the native grasses and populations of animals on which birds prey can die off, leading to birds not having enough food to survive. Cyanobacteria that occur as part of algal blooms have also been linked to die-offs of birds around the world.5

Marine life

Marine species suffer from water pollution regardless of its cause, but one particularly significant contributor to pollution is aquaculture, or fish farming. Alongside pesticides, fish feces, and antibiotics, one of the most threatening contaminants from aquaculture are the farmed fish themselves. Repeatedly, farmed fish have escaped from enclosures in which they are normally kept, despite every precaution taken, and wreaked havoc on native populations.

Land animals

Cyanobacteria poisoning can affect land animals as well as birds.6 The build-up of any toxic elements in waterways can ultimately impact on animals whose food webs include marine organisms, and the collapse of aquatic ecosystems can have unpredictable effects for land-dwelling animals.

In the children’s story Charlotte’s Web, the main character is a pig named Wilbur who enjoys a large pen surrounded by his animal friends on a quaint farm outside a small town in Maine. When we picture pigs on a farm, many of us likely imagine an idyllic scene similar to those fed to us when we were young. Yet this image of how pigs are housed and raised on farms couldn’t be further from the truth today.

Although pigs are recognized as one of the most intelligent species, most pigs are housed by the thousands in crowded conditions with very little to stimulate them mentally. Mother pigs are often locked in crates that prevent them from caring for their young in line with their natural inclinations, forcing them to act as little more than a milk-producing machine until the piglets are old enough to be removed.

What are pigs used for on a farm?

Despite their emotional and intellectual intelligence, pigs on farms have been bred for a single purpose: to serve people and, most commonly, to be served to people as a side of bacon or ham.

Pigs for meat

The primary reason that pigs are raised on farms is to be slaughtered and have their bodies processed into meat. In 2020, over 1.5 billion pigs were slaughtered around the world. This number has been consistently trending upwards as populations around the world grow in size and wealth.1 Most pigs raised for their meat spend their lives within the confines of an indoor intensive agriculture system in a series of large warehouses. The pigs living in these systems often become inactive and unresponsive, as a result of a lack of mental stimulation.

Pigs for breeding

Pigs that are used for breeding on factory farms often find themselves locked in small cages called gestation crates. These crates are so small that mother pigs are unable to turn around and must spend their lives facing in the same direction. They are also prone to developing sores and abscesses. These conditions lead to frustration, with pigs biting at the doors of their cages looking for a release from their suffering.

Are pigs easy to farm?

Farming pigs is not easy and can take a huge toll on the physical and mental health of those that work with them directly. Exposure to particulate matter, ammonia, and hydrogen sulfide can cause respiratory issues, with an elevated risk of disease from bacterial infections, and a near-constant risk of injury, whether from machinery, waste lagoons, or the maltreated pigs themselves.

This physical danger is one reason why farming animals correlates with worse mental health than farming crops. Pigs are also highly intelligent creatures with unique personalities and the ability to empathize with one another. People who have to work in close proximity to their suffering, notably in slaughterhouses, also frequently experience poor mental health.

What do pigs eat on a farm?

The food given to pigs on factory farms is made up primarily of a combination of soy and corn. Corn accounts for about 62 percent of the average pig’s diet on a factory farm in the United States while soy makes up over 13 percent of their diet.2 A common additive in pig feed is fish meal which provides protein to young pigs. Researchers suggest that 90 percent of the fish ground into meal are fit for human consumption. Because it is more profitable to sell these fish to be turned into meal, the communities that once depended upon them as a staple, as is the case in Peru, have less access to them.3

In an alarming turn of events following the 2013 porcine epidemic diarrhea virus outbreak that killed about one-tenth of pigs being raised for pork, the deceased bodies of piglets and the feces of infected pigs were fed to pigs as a means of combating the virus and preventing its return.

Why is pig farming a problem?

A number of issues are associated with farming pigs including environmental, public health, and welfare concerns involving both the animals and surrounding communities.

Environmental and health impacts

Industrial-scale pig farming causes water and air pollution, and like all intensive animal farming it contributes to climate change thanks to direct emissions from waste and its inefficient use of land, water, and other resources when compared with arable farming.

The expansion and continued operation of industrial pig farms contributes to the degradation of natural resources and habitats in some of the most biologically diverse places on earth, including in the Yucatán Peninsula. Here the expansion of pig farming is driving biodiversity loss. The area is home to over 250 registered pig farms, Mexico’s largest carbon sink, and its most important reserve of groundwater. The pig farms in the area are causing pollution and degradation of valuable natural resources. The people in the Yucatán and throughout Mexico depend upon the health and well-being of the natural resources within the peninsula to continue to thrive.

Genetic manipulation

Genetically manipulating the animals we raise for food is nothing new. Chickens raised for meat have been engineered to grow at astonishing speeds, laying hens have been bred to produce an overwhelming number of eggs, cows have been manipulated to make vast quantities of milk, and pigs too have been genetically modified to maximize their profitability. Often the genetic modifications taking place, whether through breeding or gene-editing, are solving problems that exist due to poor animal welfare. For example, efforts to create “super muscly” pigs would not be as necessary were pigs provided with better enrichment and nutrition.

Animal cruelty

Perhaps the most glaring reason that pig farming is problematic is that the industry causes vast animal suffering. This suffering includes mother pigs being confined in crates, unable to care for their young, and lives spent in barren concrete pens. The lack of mental stimulation leads to boredom and destructive behaviors such as tail biting.4

Geopolitical issues

The corporations behind factory farms are massive and have no qualms about getting involved in politics to benefit themselves. Through their efforts, numerous initiatives seeking to improve the welfare of pigs on factory farms have been challenged and shot down. The ongoing debate concerning California’s Prop 12 is just one example.

Drugs

The use of drugs in pigs is detrimental to public health for several reasons.

Growth promoters

The primary growth promoter given to pigs is ractopamine. This drug causes pigs to develop more muscle than they otherwise would, given their diet and lack of exercise. Though research on human impacts is slim, some suggests that in humans the drug can cause an increased heart rate. There are also reports of people being poisoned following their consumption of pork from pigs fed the substance.5

Antibiotics

Tetracycline is one of the most widely used antibiotics in pigs around the world. Analyses have shown that genes resistant to the drug are some of the most abundant antibiotic-resistant genes in bacteria found in pigs.

Parasites

Pigs host parasites that are capable of being passed on to people. One example of this is ascariasis, a parasite that causes difficulty breathing and weight loss in infected individuals. The parasite can be contracted by eating vegetables and fruits that have been fertilized with pig manure or by not washing one’s hands thoroughly following handling pigs.

Hygiene

Because pigs carry some parasites and diseases that can be easily transmitted to other pigs or even people, hygiene is of the utmost importance to facilities raising thousands of pigs. In an effort to increase hygiene, these facilities often choose to reduce animal welfare by keeping pigs in barren concrete pens instead of offering bedding such as straw that would provide the opportunity for pigs to engage in natural behaviors like rooting and nesting.6

Labor issues

The issues faced by the employees and staff of pig farms are numerous. Farmworkers tend to be responsible for carrying out procedures such as clipping teeth, neutering, and docking the tails of screaming piglets. Working on a pig farm leads to workers being exposed to large amounts of noise and ammonia from the thousands of pigs being housed in the sheds, both of which can cause long-term health problems.

Pig intelligence

Pigs are recognized as one of the most intelligent species. They are skilled at simple video games, and form tight-knit groups with complex social relationships. When not being factory farmed, they take pride in their surroundings and maintain a clean environment. Some pigs have even been documented decorating their enclosures.7 This is in direct contradiction to the widely held belief that pigs are dirty and unintelligent creatures.

Is it profitable to farm pigs?

The question of whether pig farming is profitable is irrelevant given the detrimental impacts of pig farming on the environment, public health, and worker and animal welfare. The only reason that pig farming is profitable as we know it is because it is propped up by subsidies funded by taxpayers, by a lack of effective oversight to ensure workers’ rights are respected, and by the crowding and suffering of millions of pigs.

How much does a pig cost?

The relatively low cost of buying the products produced from farmed pigs is due to the many corners the industry is allowed to cut. To stay inexpensive, the industry depends upon government subsidies, poor working conditions, and horrendous animal welfare.

Conclusion

Raising pigs for food causes harm to the environment, public health, and animal welfare. Yet many new and innovative replacement products are being brought to the market every year that provide the taste of our favorite animal-derived foods without requiring that the animals die for our enjoyment. There has never been a better time to cut back on, or eliminate, pig products in our diets.

This content was originally published by the Jewish Initiative for Animals (JIFA), a project of Farm Forward from 2016 through 2024. JIFA is now the Center for Jewish Food Ethics.

Jewish tradition has long regarded dairy as intrinsic to the definition of kosher law.

Dairy is symbolic of ethnogeographic roots (“a land flowing with milk and honey”) and connected to ritual on holidays such as Shavu’ot and Hanukkah. While the dairy source of our shepherd ancestors came primarily from small-scale herds of goats and sheep, most Jews now consume the most widely available commercial products from industrial dairies.

Like other farmed species, today most dairy cows do not become pregnant through natural mating; they’re forcibly impregnated through artificial insemination. After they give birth, they produce more milk than ever before due to intensive artificial selection enabled by DNA sequencing. Per capita milk production has doubled in the past forty years and continues to climb. If a dairy cow was producing just enough to feed her calf, she would only produce about one gallon of milk per day. Instead, the average American dairy cow now produces over 24,000 pounds of milk every year and averages more than 7.5 gallons of milk per day.

This unnaturally high milk load has created the dairy industry’s two biggest welfare issues, decade after decade: mastitis and lameness. These painful conditions are exacerbated by the living conditions inside factory farms where most American dairy cows live. Contrary to the happy pastoral scenes used in dairy advertising, over 90 percent of cows live almost exclusively inside barns on concrete floors slick with sewage, where their joints and hooves bear the weight of a full udder most of their adult lives. Mastitis is an udder infection, and factory farms’ high-humidity, low-ventilation environment promotes bacterial growth. Cows live in tie-stalls where they are tethered by the neck except when they are milked. This confinement severely limits opportunities for natural behaviors like exploring, socializing, and grooming. Industrial dairies are an animal welfare nightmare.

Convenience comes at a cost, both to cows and to the planet. Whether raised for meat or dairy, cows are leading greenhouse gas emitters. The processes required to raise them (e.g., alfalfa production for their feed) are very carbon-intensive, and the animals themselves generate methane and nitrous oxide in massive quantities. Milk’s water footprint hovers around 50 gallons for every cup, contributing heavily to droughts and dry-ups in the American West. Consider also that many gallons of milk are required to produce a finished dairy product such as cheese. Cheese consistently ranks as one of the worst foods for the climate, generating more GHGs than fish, poultry, or eggs.

In keeping up with our appetite for ice cream and asiago, dairy production shows no signs of slowing down. Just four months after giving birth, dairy cows are reimpregnated and will go through 4-5 pregnancies before being slaughtered, usually for ground beef around age four, though their lifespans would normally reach twenty years. Male calves are also sent to slaughter, as are about a quarter of female calves and any cows who exhibit infertility or whose milk production has declined. Given the stress, disease, and generally poor body condition of the average dairy cow, it’s little wonder that one in ten cows struggles to conceive. Those who do conceive don’t wean their young naturally because standard industry practice separates calves from their mothers within 24 hours of birth. Calves naturally wean at an average age of about eight months. Female calves become replacements, growing up to become the next generation of milk-producers.

From caring for animals’ well-being to protecting the Earth’s ecological balance, water resources, and climate, there are many Jewish values-based reasons to commit to alternatives to industrial dairy.

This content was originally published by the Jewish Initiative for Animals (JIFA), a project of Farm Forward from 2016 through 2024. JIFA is now the Center for Jewish Food Ethics.

From schnitzel to matzo ball soup, Jewish culinary tradition makes frequent use of chicken.

The birds have lived with Jewish communities for millennia, domesticated 4,000–10,000 years ago. Historically, however, chicken was never consumed in the quantities most people in the industrialized world eat today.

In 1948, the USDA and the US’s largest supermarket chain put on the ‘Chicken of Tomorrow’ contest. Their primary aim was to breed a chicken that grows faster while eating less feed, and they succeeded more than anyone expected. The winners of that contest went on to develop complex new “hybrid” breeding techniques never before used in the history of poultry production. Thus began an explosion in chicken production and popularity: the USDA calculates that chicken consumption has increased by 540 percent between 1910 and 2021.

Today, chickens raised for their meat are referred to as “broiler chickens” while those who produce eggs are “laying hens.” Although the two animals are technically the same—both G. gallus domesticus—each have different bodies with different issues due to bifurcation of the industries. Over the past 50+ years, factory farms have bred hundreds of generations of broiler chickens and laying hens, selecting genes so that the birds produce more meat or eggs, respectively.

Broilers have been aggressively bred for rapid muscle growth (“meat” being muscle), resulting in rampant lameness. Chickens have more than doubled in size over the past few decades, and deliberately breeding for high muscle-to-bone ratio means that chickens today are too heavy for their own skeletons to support. Organ stress is common, their hearts struggling to pump blood throughout such massive bodies. Birds normally suffer from degenerative joint disease, so they spend most of their time sitting or lying on waste-soaked litter. Factory farms don’t provide enrichment opportunities for the birds—let alone outdoor access—denying chickens the chance to perch or investigate as they naturally would. Broiler chickens are slaughtered around 7 weeks of age. Genetically healthy chickens, by contrast, can live out a natural lifespan of 10 or more years.

An estimated 10 billion broilers are killed in the US every year, and 70 billion worldwide. There is no legal limit to how large American chicken farms can be, and since agriculture favors economies of scale, a typical shed “houses” thousands of birds. With factory farms preferring to set up shop in rural areas, chicken populations normally outnumber neighboring human communities more than ten-to-one, leaving neighbors feeling powerless against industry interests. It’s not just birds who suffer from massive farms but nearby communities, waterways, and wildlife too. Moreover, the industry is rife with labor justice issues—from farmers who are coerced into indentured servitude to impoverished, primarily BIPOC and immigrant workers who endure some of the most dangerous jobs in slaughter and processing plants.

Factory farmed poultry also poses a public health threat to people everywhere, even though these chickens are produced far from the urban centers where they’re purchased by the millions. With hundreds of thousands of immunocompromised, genetically manipulated birds housed in filthy, crowded barns, industrial poultry farms are uniquely suited for generating new pathogens and potential pandemics. In fact, most of the influenza viruses with pandemic potential deemed “of special concern” by the CDC arose from commercial poultry operations. Scientists are keeping close watch on the current highly contagious H5N1 bird flu that has decimated egg production and hen populations (58 million birds have died or been euthanized to try to stop its spread.) Scientists are even developing vaccines for a potential human outbreak. Complicating health matters further, the chicken industry’s perpetual overuse of drugs, including antibiotics, is driving widespread antimicrobial resistance. As journalist Maryn McKenna reports, we may be turning back the clock on the pharmacological breakthroughs that revolutionized medicine and human health.

From animal welfare to labor justice to public health, there are many Jewish values-based reasons to commit to alternatives to industrial poultry.

This content was originally published by the Jewish Initiative for Animals (JIFA), a project of Farm Forward from 2016 through 2024. JIFA is now the Center for Jewish Food Ethics.

Perhaps few food items are more closely associated with Ashkenazi Jewish American culture than lox, bagels and cream cheese.

Whether brined or smoked, lox is, fundamentally, a cured meat. True lox (salmon) has fallen out of favor in recent decades due to its intense saltiness, and milder smoke-salt hybrids such as nova lox are now the preferred choice, but the Jewish taste for cured salmon is as strong as ever. In the past few years, American consumers have broken seafood consumption records, hitting 19 pounds per capita in 2019. Although much of the seafood category is treyf, or non-kosher to observant Jews, cured salmon is a significant part of those record-breaking numbers: Americans eat on average over four pounds of canned and cured fish alone per person every year. What most of these consumers don’t realize is where that fish comes from.

Just as we’re fed images of grass-fed cows, we’re led to believe that fish are taken from the ocean. Wild-caught salmon is no longer standard industry practice. What we think of as “fishing” is more accurately aquaculture. For a decade now, more fish globally have been farmed than caught, and in the case of salmon, the ratio sits at about 4:1, the three million farmed salmon far outnumbering their wild-caught counterparts. Norway and Chile raise about 80 percent of the world’s farmed salmon, with Canada, Britain, and the Faroe Islands rounding out the top five producers. Over two million metric tons of salmon are farmed every year. That’s a lot of lox.

But long before lox becomes lox, salmon roe are scooped a pitcherful at a time into freshwater incubator trays, and once hatched, they are moved from plastic tub to plastic tub until finally they become physiologically compatible with saltwater pens. The experience of a farmed fish is nearly devoid of opportunities for natural behaviors. Farmed fish don’t migrate, farmed fish don’t meet members of other species, and farmed fish don’t hunt. Normally predators in the wild, farmed salmon feed on pellets made up of ground-up fish also likely farmed at an aquaculture operation.

As with farmed land animals, farmed fish live in crowded and cramped conditions and may suffer from lesions and debilitating injuries. Stressful conditions cause disease and parasite outbreaks, like sea lice, that farmers respond to with pesticides and antibiotics. These treatment measures promote resistant strains of diseases that can harm both wild fish populations and public health. Given what we know about fishes’ capacity for stress and pain, aquaculture is abysmal for animal welfare.

That’s not to say “wild caught” fish is preferable to farmed. Overfishing has been an ongoing problem for decades. The North Atlantic cod fishery memorably collapsed in the early 1990s. Though the Canadian government put the kibosh on cod fishing back in 1992, populations still haven’t recovered. Perhaps the most significant problem with industrial fishing is bycatch: 40 percent of what fishermen catch in their trawlers is not what they mean to catch. Thirty-eight million tons of sea creatures are unintentionally caught every year, their corpses routinely dumped back into the ocean to make room in the nets for the next catch. This poses a threat not just to the millions of jellyfish, sharks, octopuses, urchins, skates, and unmarketable species of fish who are killed, but also to endangered species such as migrating loggerhead turtles, dolphins, and whales who can die from entanglement in fishing gear. The fishing industry is also a significant source of modern slavery, where people are trapped on remote fishing vessels in brutal conditions.

The true cost of fishing is always higher than it appears. From preserving wild habitats and species to caring for vulnerable workers, there are many Jewish values-based reasons to commit to alternatives to industrial fishing.

An observant consumer might have noticed that over the last several decades chicken breasts on supermarket shelves have grown larger and appear more marbled. These changes are the result of genetic modification, a method through which generations of birds are bred to maximize the profit of the animal agriculture industry, with scant regard given to their welfare. This process is distinct from genetic engineering, which is the use of modern technology to edit a genetic structure.

Are chickens GMO?

Chickens, like almost every other animal raised for food  around the world, are the result of intense breeding  aimed at emphasizing certain characteristics that increase their profitability. In other words, and by the USDA’s definition of “genetically modified,” yes—chickens are genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

What is GMO meat?

Any meat that is the result of genetic modification is considered GMO. This genetic modification can take place in a variety of ways. One of the most common is selective breeding. Virtually all species of animals raised for their meat have been genetically modified through selective breeding practices. According to a Pew Research Center report, in the last 100 years, the growth rate of chickens has skyrocketed while their intake of feed has gone down. In 1925, it took 112 days for a chicken to reach 2.5 pounds, the size at which she would be sent to slaughter. For each pound gained, she would consume about 4.7 pounds of feed. In 2010, a chicken was sent to slaughter at 5.7 pounds after only 47 days. To pack on so much weight so quickly, she ate only 1.9 pounds of feed to produce each pound of growth.

Another, far less common way animals raised for food can be genetically modified is through gene splicing. This type of modification is rare in commercial animal farming and consists of changing an organism’s genetic makeup by introducing, eliminating, or rearranging specific genes using modern scientific techniques. Very few breeds of animal that have been gene spliced can be raised for the purpose of producing food in the United States. One is farmed Atlantic salmon, who have been modified to grow to market size in half the time that they would normally. The most recent case is Angus cattle who have a lighter coat so that they can be raised in warmer climates and experience a lower rate of heat stress. While the former went through a lengthy approval process before first being sold in 2021, the cattle were determined to be “low-risk” by the Food and Drug Administration less than two years after the initial proposal, meaning that no additional regulatory approval is required before the cattle are used to create products for the market, including meat.

What is a GMO egg?

A genetically modified egg is one which has been laid by a genetically modified chicken. In 2021, the average chicken in the United States laid 285 eggs. This is almost double the 150 eggs a year that the average backyard hen laid in the 1930s. This increase in productivity comes with serious welfare concerns for the mother hens, including bone fractures due to the laying that starts before the hens are fully grown, and fractures that occur because the increased egg production robs much of the calcium that the hens would otherwise use to maintain their bones.1 Such fractures have markedly increased over time thanks to the genetic modification of the chickens.

What is genetically engineered chicken?

The USDA defines genetic engineering as “Manipulation of an organism’s genes by introducing, eliminating or rearranging specific genes using the methods of modern molecular biology, particularly those techniques referred to as recombinant DNA techniques.” While the production of modern broilers does not rely on recombinant DNA techniques (“gene splicing”), it is indeed genetic engineering by the USDA’s definition, as it depends on manipulating specific genes using the methods of modern molecular biology. The genetic engineering that industrial chickens have undergone has occurred through inserting genetic sequences via intensive breeding that relies more on modern molecular biology techniques than on the traditional breeding of animal husbandry. To produce a single “hybrid” bird, producers cross 15-20 lines of sometimes freakish birds who never go to market, but exist solely to pass on specific genetic sequences. These efforts have resulted in two distinct types of hybrid chickens: those modified to produce a large number of eggs, and those modified to grow very large very quickly.

Both types of chickens suffer from their genetic modifications. Laying hens often experience painful fractures of their keel bones, which run along the underside of the birds’ bodies. The fractures are likely caused by a number of factors, including the young age at which hens now begin laying eggs, the sheer size of the eggs, and weakened bones because egg production requires much of the calcium in the hens’ diet.2 Chickens raised for meat, or broiler chickens, experience a variety of health issues resulting from intense breeding. These issues include leg disorders, cardiovascular disease, and high mortality rates.3

Are all chickens GMO?

In 2021, 9.13 billion broiler chickens were raised for meat and 111 billion eggs were laid by hens in just the United States. The vast majority of these chickens are GMOs, as they have been bred purposefully to select for certain traits that stand to increase profit margins. There are, however, a few small farms raising heritage chickens—which belong to breeds recognized by the American Poultry Association prior to the mid-20th century—who are able to naturally breed, can live long lives outdoors, and have a slow growth rate. However, extinction threatens many heritage breeds because they are not as economically advantageous as more popular broiler breeds. Heritage chickens represent the closest thing to a GMO-free chickens in the United States today.

What is non-GMO chicken feed?

What is sometimes referred to as non-GMO chicken feed is feed that has not been genetically engineered through recombinant DNA techniques, though it will likely have been modified in other ways. These foods may also fall under the category of organic because organic certification in the U.S. prohibits gene splicing. While this means that the ingredients in the feed have not had their genes edited to better tolerate herbicides or withstand certain insects considered pests, it is important to realize that virtually all crops grown on a large scale, including the corn and grains that make up a lot of chicken feed, have been bred over decades so that they bear more fruit.  There is no evidence to suggest that using chicken feed that includes genetically modified ingredients of any type is less safe or healthy for birds than using one that is labeled GMO-free.4 However, some feed producers are creating formulas using crops that are grown in a system of regenerative agriculture. Regenerative methods of growing feed crops have better outcomes for the soil than industrial methods of growing feed crops.

Which ingredients in chicken feed are typically genetically modified?

The crops that are most frequently genetically engineered are maize, soybeans, cotton, and rapeseed, all of which can be found in chicken feeds. Even the ingredients of organic and so-called “non-GMO” feeds have ingredients that are modified, in that they have been bred over generations, but these ingredients should not have been altered through gene splicing.

What is the difference between GMO-free and non-GMO?

The terms “GMO-free” and “non-GMO” are both used to describe foods that are free of genetically engineered ingredients. The primary difference is where they are used, as different countries tend to favor one term or the other.

GMO-free

The term “GMO-free,” and variations such as “Ohne Gentechnik” in Germany, can be found gracing many products in Europe.

Non-GMO

In the United States, the term “non-GMO” tends to be favored more.

Who benefits from GMOs?

When it comes to genetically modified chickens, those that stand to benefit the most are the two companies that control the genetics of chickens, Cobb-Vantress and Aviagen. In 2016 Cobb-Vantress alone controlled almost half of the global market for breeder chickens who hatched the broilers raised for meat. In addition to these two companies, the integrators that contract with the farms that raise the chickens also stand to benefit from the genetically modified birds, since they can save money on the resources used to raise the birds and to ensure that competitors who raise other breeds are not able to make the same profit margins.