One of the most destructive industries on the planet is also one of the most secretive. The industrial farming of animals for meat, eggs, and milk creates vast profits for a handful of people while driving environmental and health crises and causes suffering on an unimaginable scale. It’s time to unveil some of its worst impacts so that we might all make choices that are better for us, the planet, animals, and our futures.
1. Animal ag is the leading cause of deforestation
Farming animals for meat, dairy, and eggs is the leading driver of tropical deforestation. This is caused predominantly by rearing cows for beef, but also growing the soy that supplies feed for factory-farmed animals—including dairy cows, pigs, chickens and fish—all over the world.
2. Animal ag is driving wild animals to extinction
When forests and other habitats are destroyed, the wild animals who depend on them die out, too. Already, wild animal populations have declined by an average of 70 percent since 1970 and this is a crisis that is affecting the whole world.
3. Animal ag is responsible for 14.5% of all GHGs
Farming animals is one of the biggest contributors to climate breakdown. Much of the damage comes from clearing land for grazing and to grow crops for the billions of factory-farmed animals trapped in the system. Additionally, methane emissions from the animals themselves make this industry particularly dangerous for our futures.
4. Animal ag pollutes waters and gets away with it
Billions of farmed animals have to poop, and that poop has to go somewhere. But there is far too much of it and it is toxic. It inevitably ends up in waterways, where it destroys ecosystems and makes water dangerous to swim in. Lawyers have been fighting the animal farming industry for decades, trying to get them to clean up the pollution. But, their corporate lawyers are fighting for all they are worth, and meanwhile the environmental catastrophe only worsens.
5. Animal ag incarcerates billions of animals a year… and is legally permitted to mutilate them
Around 80 billion sentient beings are put through the most appalling suffering inside factory farms every year. They endure intense confinement, the theft of their young, untreated diseases and injuries, forced insemination, and multiple mutilations—from their tails being amputated to their teeth being ground down. Due to industry lobbying, these mutilations remain legal and can be done without pain relief.
6. Animal ag exploits workers who pay a heavy price
Workers in the animal farming and slaughter industries are often paid poverty wages while being expected to undertake some of the most dangerous jobs on Earth. From toxic chemicals and frightened animals to complex machinery and split-second decision-making, even the strongest may succumb to injury and death. Mental health problems, substance abuse, violence, forced labor, and child labor are hallmarks of this most exploitative of industries.
7. Animal ag helps create antibiotic-resistant pathogens that kill people
The filth and squalor of factory farms—where almost all meat, dairy, and eggs come from—are perfect breeding grounds for disease. Just to try and keep the animals alive in those conditions requires large amounts of antibiotics. But this drives antibiotic-resistance and is wasting our only chance to have effective drugs for humans in need. Already, 35,000 Americans die each year from antibiotic-resistant infections.
8. Animal ag has created the perfect environments for the next pandemic, and they are in your neighborhood
Inside those squalid farms, viruses circulate among the tightly packed immunocompromised animals. Inevitably, those viruses escape. If we are lucky, someone gets mildly sick and then recovers. If we are unlucky, infection spreads from person to person, causing severe illness and death. Intensive poultry and pig farms are known to be the most dangerous, with one bird flu virus killing 60 percent of the people it infects.
9. Animal ag is worth more than $1 trillion and has made some of the richest people on the planet
Don’t be fooled by the idyllic homestead images. Modern farms are vast steel warehouses and barren lots into which large numbers of animals are crammed. In this cut-throat industry, vast profits from sales, taxpayer subsidies, and other grants and tax breaks, flow ever upwards. The family that owns agribusiness giant Cargill include 14 billionaires. Meanwhile, the business pollutes, destroys, and sickens.
10. Animal ag invests millions in lobbying to prevent better regulation
Big Ag has a seat at the top political tables. It pays huge sums of money to politicians to prevent regulations, to ensure reports are watered down, and exposés prevented. One of the largest agribusiness firms, JBS which has its meat products on shelves all over the world, has admitted to bribing 1,800 politicians and is associated with insider trading, price fixing, and corruption. Why are we giving these people our money?
11. Animal ag is exempt from many animal welfare laws and seems to just ignore environmental laws
It is illegal to keep a dog or a cat the way that chickens and pigs are kept. It is illegal to mutilate companion animals without pain relief. It is illegal to cut their throats. The animal agriculture industry has an exemption from the laws that protect animals from suffering. And as for environmental laws … Well, they appear to just ignore those with impunity.
12. Animal ag is a master at misleading advertising: greenwashing and humane washing
The reason you may not know all of this is because the industry is able to get away with misleading advertising and claims. It says animals enjoy high welfare. It says its industry is beneficial for the planet. It says that everything is just lovely down on the family farm. None of this is true.
We Have A Secret, Too
Big Ag is a disaster for animals, people, and the planet. But, despite everything it does to mislead, buy protection, silence critics, and keep amassing great wealth, we still have the upper hand.
Because Big Ag can be topped simply by boycotting its products.
