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.

FOIA documents expose which companies failed the United States Department of Agriculture’s 2023 antibiotics sampling project and what’s changed since they concluded the project in August.

In an investigation released today, Farm Forward revealed that trusted beef brands like Tyson, Cargill, and JBS have been deceiving consumers by continuing to sell products that are not antibiotic-free under Raised Without Antibiotics (RWA) labels. In an issue brief titled, “Is Antibiotic-Free Meat Really Antibiotic-Free?,” Farm Forward exposes how deceptive use of RWA marketing claims by several major beef companies persisted even after the USDA announced findings from a 2023 antibiotics sampling project, which revealed at least 20 percent of tested cattle samples labeled “raised without antibiotics” or “no antibiotics ever” contained antibiotics.

Farm Forward’s investigation was prompted by the USDA’s refusal to regulate and provide punitive action against bad actors or even disclose which companies’ products tested positive for antibiotics in their study. The agency’s inaction has prevented consumers from being able to make informed decisions about what they eat, what kinds of labels they support, and how much they spend.

Farm Forward Executive Director Andrew deCoriolis said, “The findings from this investigation underscore a pattern of the USDA leaving everyday people across this country to chance and prioritizing industry’s bottom line at our expense. Beef brands that many know and trust have been knowingly defrauding the public with claims that their products are free of antibiotics, and while they are certainly at fault, the USDA—the government agency responsible for regulating America’s agriculture—is at fault for not enforcing the standards they’ve set.

“The USDA claims to ‘keep America’s farmers and ranchers in business and ensure the nation’s meat, poultry, and egg products are safe, wholesome, and properly labeled.’ The data revealed that these products were not properly labeled, and the USDA did nothing about it, and it further proves that agribusiness is being protected, but the American people are not.”

Bill Niman, well-known California rancher, added, “The deceptive marketing of ‘antibiotic-free’ meat creates an uneven playing field that severely disadvantages truly humane and sustainable farmers and ranchers. While industrial producers make misleading claims with the USDA’s tacit approval, genuine small-scale producers who actually raise animals without antibiotics must compete against these false narratives. These ethical farmers invest significantly more in proper animal care, space, and preventive health measures to legitimately avoid antibiotics, resulting in higher production costs. When large meat companies can simply slap misleading labels on their products without actually changing their practices, they undercut honest producers on price while stealing their market share. This deception not only harms consumers who believe they’re making ethical choices but systematically undermines the economic viability of the very farming systems that could transform our food system for the better.”

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Certified Humane® label also sued after Farm Forward’s 2024 findings on inhumane conditions at Alexandre.

Furious consumers have filed a class action lawsuit against Alexandre Family Farm and the owners of the Certified Humane® label based on findings released last year in Farm Forward investigation of the farm’s routine animal abuse and neglect and selling of diseased animals for human consumption. The class action lawsuit, filed by Richman Law & Policy (RLP), alleges that Alexandre dairy farm and Humane Farm Animal Care—the entity behind the Certified Humane® label—humanewashed the farm’s practices, misleading consumers and falsely representing Alexandre products as “humane,” all while Alexandre engaged in shocking and systemic acts of animal cruelty.

The lawsuit relies on both Farm Forward’s investigation and new, previously unreleased evidence of cruel treatment to calves. The lawsuit describes how, despite the overwhelming evidence of abuse, Certified Humane allowed Alexandre Family Farm to market their products as “humane.” The suit details how the farm: 

• Poured salt into the eyes of hundreds of cows and glued denim patches to cows’ eyes
• Sawed off horns of more than 800 cows through tissue laced with nerves without any pain management
• Severed a cow’s teat with an unsanitized pocketknife
• Dragged a cow across concrete and gravel for 50 yards using a skid loader
• Failed to provide routine veterinary or hoof care management
• Transported of sick, injured, and lame cows to auction rather than euthanizing them

These allegations underscore Farm Forward’s investigation and report, which was originally featured in The Atlantic. Full details on the lawsuit and additional findings can be found here.

“Consumers are tired of paying more for a lie,” said Farm Forward Executive Director Andrew deCoriolis. “This investigation unfortunately reveals that even a dairy that has been touted as one of the most ethical operations in the country cannot be trusted by consumers to treat its animals humanely. It reveals that there is virtually no way for Americans to know if they are consuming higher welfare dairy, no matter how much extra they pay. And it reveals that voluntary labels like Certified Humane are inadequate for protecting consumers or providing any sort of public accountability for these companies. The USDA needs to set and enforce meaningful standards for terms like ‘humanely raised,’ ‘sustainably raised,’ and ‘antibiotic free.’ Without regulation, consumers can just get conned.

“This lawsuit sends a clear message: consumers will hold companies accountable for making false promises about animal welfare. When a dairy widely considered the industry’s gold standard for ethics fails to meet basic welfare standards—and their certifier fails to enforce them—it exposes a broken system. Today, there’s simply no way to guarantee your dairy purchases support better treatment of animals, regardless of price or certification. The most ethical choice is to opt out of dairy from cows.”

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Farm Forward is a team of strategists, campaigners, and thought leaders guiding the movement to change the way our world eats and farms. Learn more at https://www.farmforward.com/

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.

Bird flu will become a “widespread killer of humans” unless the current administration acts; and the next administration makes it an urgent priority.

This press release was originally sent out on January 7th, 2025.

Concern surrounding H5N1 bird flu is higher than ever after news reports of the death of a Louisiana resident following serious complications from contracting the virus. A human death marks a turning point and raises urgent questions around the trajectory of the nearly three-year bird flu outbreak. Farm Forward Executive Director Andrew deCoriolis issued the following statement:

“I am saddened by the news that a person in America has died of complications from bird flu. This virus has ravaged poultry and dairy farms across the country, threatened the health of farm workers, raised prices and impacted our food supply, and now, it has tragically taken a human life.”

“Bird flu will become a widespread killer of human beings and continue to kill animals unless the federal government acts urgently to prevent further spread. While factory farms have greatly contributed to the emergence and wildfire spread of H5N1, the problem has far exceeded the control of big ag. We need rightsized government regulation for both agriculture and public health to end this years-long bird flu outbreak—in the waning days of the current administration and as an urgent priority of the next one.”

Photo credit: Abigail Messier / We Animals

Last week, health officials in British Columbia, Canada, announced that a teenager who contracted bird flu is currently in critical condition. Concerningly, the patient has had no known contact with farmed animals and has no underlying conditions. Less than a week later, a child in California who had no known contact with farmed poultry tested positive for bird flu. These cases mark a stark shift in the spread of bird flu because of the severity of the illness and because neither had direct contact with farmed animals.

“The news of a deeply serious human case of bird flu is a massive wake-up call that should immediately mobilize efforts to prevent another human pandemic,” Farm Forward Executive Director Andrew deCoriolis said in a statement to the Los Angeles Times. “We could have prevented the spread of bird flu on poultry farms across America, and we didn’t. We could have prevented the spread of bird flu on dairy farms, and we didn’t. Now, the system is blinking red: as bird flu has seen multiple crossover events and there is presumed human-to-human spread that has taken a serious turn, the regulatory agencies responsible must do something.”

The developments should be no surprise. Industrial animal agriculture—especially large-scale poultry farming—is among the largest contributors to zoonotic disease. “Factory farms notorious for raising billions of sickly animals in filthy, cramped conditions provide a recipe for viruses like bird flu to emerge and spread. For almost 20 years Farm Forward has been calling on government agencies, including the USDA and CDC, to address the public health risks of industrial animal farming. We are now on the cusp of another pandemic and the agencies responsible for regulating farms and protecting public health are moving slower than the virus is spreading.”

Regulatory agencies, including USDA and CDC, have been slow to act. In April, Newsweek published an article written by Farm Forward’s executive director and Gail Hansen, DVM, raising serious concerns about the USDA’s slow and piecemeal response. Meaningful action is possible, as countries like France have taken proactive steps to squash bird flu using vaccines and other preventative measures.

The US can still take steps to protect the public. The USDA recently expanded testing requirements for farmed animals, and the CDC released research findings underscoring the need for testing farm workers, moves we and other advocates have long demanded. These steps are in the right direction, but more needs to be done.

Even if we can put the lid back on this immediate bird flu outbreak, this should be a clarion call for a systemic change in the food system.

While we applaud recent investments from the federal government that have finally begun to tackle the climate crisis, the Biden Administration’s hallmark climate legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), massively missed the mark when it comes to bad incentives for agriculture. Instead of prioritizing truly low-carbon regenerative and plant-based agriculture, the IRA includes hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies and tax incentives that giant meat and dairy companies are using to entrench animal factories across rural America.

Today in Washington DC, legislators introduced a new bill that would help address the harms of massive confinement factory farms and invest in sustainable food systems. The Industrial Agriculture Conversion Act (IACA), introduced by Rep. Alma Adams (D-NC) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) offers a positive vision for a future of American farming without massive CAFOs. Farm Forward strongly endorses the IACA and we join more than 100 environmental, public health, family farmer, consumer, and animal protection organizations in doing so.

At a high level, the bill directs the United States Department of Agriculture to provide grants to carry out genuinely climate-smart conservation projects. Specifically, the IACA will create a slate of new tools to enable farmers to build a more sustainable and humane agriculture system. This is a common sense bill that is supported by a significant majority of Americans—according to a survey commissioned by the ASPCA, 82 percent of Americans support the government offering CAFO farmers money to help cover the costs of transitions to more humane systems of agriculture. In that same survey, there was little support for the government’s current policy of reimbursing profitable corporations for mass culling their flocks after bird flu outbreaks (38 percent).

And according to recent polling conducted by Data for Progress on Farm Forward’s behalf, large numbers of Michigan voters reject the idea that state climate policy should be influenced by factory farms and fossil fuel interests.

And that’s what the IACA is about—moving away from financing that helps the factory farming industry.

Among other provisions, the bill:

• Supports converting CAFOs to specialty crop production;
• Supports improvements related to farm animal welfare like access to the outdoors and access to pasture;
• Prevents conservation grants from going to methane digesters and other entrenching technologies.

The Industrial Agriculture Conversion Act is the latest in a series of proposed legislation aimed at building a saner, more sustainable, and humane food system. Bills like the Farm Systems Reform Act and the Industrial Agriculture Accountability Act both, in different ways, would take important steps toward regulating factory farming and reducing its harm. Together these bills offer a bold vision for the future of American agriculture that puts factory farms where they belong—in the rearview mirror.

This press release was originally sent out on September 18th, 2024.

So-Called “Low Carbon Fuel Standard” Bill Will Make Michigan’s Environment Worse

Coalition of environmental and animal-protection groups gather to urge legislature to kill proposal

LANSING — A coalition of environmental and animal protection organizations from around the state are meeting legislators in the capitol today to urge them to reject Michigan Senate Bill 275 (SB 275), the so-called “Low Carbon Fuel Standard” bill.

The Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) bill is ostensibly part of efforts to encourage the use of cleaner fuels for cars and trucks that will do less damage to air quality and the climate in Michigan. However, the bill was created by and for massive oil and gas companies, huge agricultural producers, and large utilities (such as DTE and Consumers Energy). The bill will essentially create a pollution trading scheme through the buying and selling of carbon “offset” credits.

By incentivizing Big Oil and Big Ag to collaborate on massive biogas facilities, the bill will encourage these corporations to increase the number of massive dairy farms in the state (CAFOs) and their use of “anaerobic digesters” — huge lakes of cow manure that will pollute Michigan’s air and water.

“The impact of this bill is likely to be devastating for communities, the environment and animal welfare.” said Valerie Schey, spokesperson with Michiganders for a Just Farming System (MJFS). “It represents a huge corporate giveaway, masquerading as a piece of climate legislation.”

Michiganders for a Just Farming System has learned that the primary influence on the text of the bill was a group called “Clean Fuels Michigan” whose members are big biogas companies, oil companies like British Petroleum, utilities like DTE and Consumers Energy, and other big companies like Amazon and Delta Airlines.

The coalition opposing the bill includes:

• The Anishinaabek Caucus of the Michigan Democratic Party
• Attorneys for Animals
• Barn Sanctuary
• Clean Water Action
• Farm Forward
• Food and Water Watch
• Humane Society of Huron Valley
• Michigan Clinicians for Climate Action
• Michiganders for A Just Farming System
• Student Animal Legal Defense Fund Chapter of Michigan State University College of Law
• Washtenaw 350

SB 275 would establish Michigan’s first LCFS. Used in other states, a LCFS creates a market for buying and selling carbon credits (a.k.a. carbon offsets) for transportation fuels. Carbon offset programs have received an abundance of criticism from environmental policy experts for enabling companies to use shoddy and opaque accounting of their “offset credits” to greenwash their appearance to the public while doing little to nothing to actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

As written, the bill instead incentivizes the production of energy sources that are not really clean, such as biogas derived from animal manure produced on factory farms. The amount of greenhouse gasses emitted from industrial animal agriculture will likely be more than the greenhouse gas emissions reduced by replacing fossil fuels with biogas. In the end, Michigan will end up with more animal waste, which pollutes the air, land, and groundwater.

“The pollution caused by burning fossil fuels is a real problem, and there are feasible solutions already out there,” Schey said. “But the carbon credit system that SB 275 would establish is a false solution for reducing these greenhouse gas emissions.”

Earlier this year, a survey exploring the policies proposed by SB 275 was conducted of 832 likely Michigan voters. The survey found that while there is strong support for climate legislation, the support is conditional. Voters across party lines said they would not trust climate legislation that was influenced by fossil fuel companies or utilities.

The coalition assembled today plans to communicate broadly with legislators throughout the session.

By Andrew deCoriolis and Gail Hansen

 This article was originally published in Newsweek earlier this year.

The government is freaking us out on bird flu. It’s not what they’re saying—it’s what they are not saying.

For more than two years the bird flu outbreak has caused devastating die offs among wild birds, wild mammals, and farmed birds. It’s overwhelming, and much of the public has understandably tuned it out.

But we should expect a lot more vigilance from the federal government, which seems complacent in the face of the outbreak’s newest and most frightening development to date. Last week, H5N1 made the first known jump into U.S. dairy cows and appeared to start spreading fast. Now this week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced the first case of the virus apparently spreading from cow to human. The USDA and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in matching statements, were quick to assure the public that everything is fine.

But the potential risks of this spillover event are much bigger than either the government or industry leaders seem ready to publicly admit. The American food system relies on factory farming of animals, pushing hundreds of millions of them together into inhumane, unsanitary, dangerously overcrowded conditions. It’s the perfect breeding ground for viruses, increasing the risk of mutations, the risk of rapid spread, and the risk of farm workers getting infected through direct exposure.

Yet the USDA’s official statements to date lack any reassurance that the agency is moving aggressively to combat these risks. Let’s break down all of the things missing in the USDA’s March 29 statement.

Early on the USDA said, “Initial testing has not found changes to the virus that would make it more transmissible to humans … the current risk to the public remains low.”

This fails to acknowledge the long history of zoonotic viruses becoming dangerous to humans. The 2009 swine flu pandemic followed that exact route, from avian flu to livestock to people. The two worst pandemics in our nation’s history—the 1918 Spanish Flu and COVID-19—were both zoonotic diseases that migrated to humans after starting in animal populations. The testing may show this strain is not highly contagious to humans yet, but spreading to livestock is a very dangerous milestone and more mutation is certain. We can’t be certain that it will ever mutate dangerously—but trusting to luck with so many unknowns is a dangerous gamble.

Likely the virus has mutated already, according to the USDA’s next claim: “Spread of symptoms among the Michigan herd also indicates that [bird flu] transmission between cattle cannot be ruled out. “This means that the virus has likely already changed enough to spread from cow to cow, as The New York Times reported. And yet the USDA said that it has only “advised” dairy farmers to change their practices to reduce spread. There is no mention here, or in media interviews, of the USDA or FDA even considering stronger steps, like emergency regulation or mandatory testing to find infected animals. Changes so far appear to be voluntary, despite the fact that a widespread cattle epidemic could be a major blow to the industry, disrupt our food chain, disrupt trade, and create much higher food prices for Americans.

Now that the virus has reached dairy cows, there are also more pathways for it to get into the human food chain. Active H5N1 virus was already found in milk that came from sick cows. But even if dairy cows are sick, the USDA said, “There continues to be no concern about the safety of the commercial milk supply because products are pasteurized before entering the market.” This is true sometimes—but not all the time. Standard industry practice is to pasteurize milk by heating it to 161 degrees Fahrenheit for at least 15 seconds. But those standards were designed to kill known bacteria, and it can take much longer to kill viruses. Research into coronaviruses found that it took 3 minutes at temperatures above 160 degrees Fahrenheit to kill the virus on surfaces. It’s not safe to assume pasteurized milk is safe from H5N1and again, there is no mention by either the USDA or FDA that they are testing it to find out.

Furthermore, the USDA said, “Dairies are required to send only milk from healthy animals into processing for human consumption; milk from impacted animals is being diverted or destroyed.” Again, it appears that the USDA is expecting farms to comply with this voluntarily, with no additional inspections or oversight. Dairy farmers have every economic incentive to ignore this advice as long as the milk appears normal. According to reports, farmers only tested milk for virus because they noticed the milk looked “thick and syrupy.” The USDA makes no mention of any plan to screen milk from infected herds to see if milk that looks normal may also carry the virus. There is no mention of USDA requiring infected herds to quarantine. There could be viruses in the milk on grocery shelves right now.

The USDA ends by saying farmers are “urged” to make changes to reduce the spread of disease. But as a longtime watchdog of the industry and a veterinary epidemiologist, we’ve seen time and again how large agricultural corporations sacrifice health, safety, and the humane treatment of animals in the pursuit of profit. There is no reason they’ll change now. But this time, the stakes are too high to ignore. The USDA needs to make it clear that they have a handle on this problem before it’s too late.

Andrew deCoriolis is the executive director of Farm Forward.

Gail Hansen is a public health veterinary expert and independent consultant. She is the former state epidemiologist and state public health veterinarian for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.

 The views expressed in this article are the writers’ own.

This was originally a press release sent out on May 23, 2024

UPDATE: Farm Forward’s Investigation into Alexandre Farm Triggers Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department Investigation, Loss of Certified Humane Status, Changes from Organic Retailers; New Videos, Photos Released as Investigation Continues.

Pressure is building on Alexandre Farm a month after the release of Farm Forward’s investigation into their harmful and inhumane dairy farming practices as new alarming photos and videos emerge.

Since the release of an extensive investigation last month revealing Alexandre Family Farm’s animal abuse, selling of diseased animals for human consumption, and polluting farm practices, pressure has been building on the once widely endorsed “organic” dairy farm, with many businesses and organizations moving to withdraw their support:

• Whole Foods Market took down a major marketing campaign (archived here, current link is dead) featuring Alexandre Family Farm as a beacon for “restarting dairy” and referring to the Alexandres as “environmental stewards;”
• Alec’s Ice Cream, which relies on Alexandre dairy, apparently took down and removed the Our Impact page from its website, which claimed that Alexandre is “proving that cows actually help reverse climate change;”
• The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department opened an animal abuse investigation into Alexandre Farm, and Farm Forward has offered to provide eyewitness testimony;
• Certified Humane, one of the most widely available humane certifications, has pulled their certification of Alexandre Family Farm;
• Regenerative Organic Alliance suspended Alexandre’s certification after their own investigation found standards violations; and
• Providore Fine Foods in Portland, Oregon, ended their relationship with Alexandre Family Farm as a result of the investigation.

Portions of the report were included in a major story released by The Atlantic that corroborated many of Farm Forward’s findings. The article was one of the top shared stories on The Atlantic’s website for several days.

Today, Farm Forward has also released several new videos and photos that prove abuse and neglect of Alexandre Family Farm continued as recently as March 2024, the same month that Alexandre learned that Farm Forward planned to release a report alleging the farm’s widespread abuse. We hoped that Alexandre might acknowledge the harms it’s caused and make immediate structural changes to address their ongoing animal welfare issues. Instead, Alexandre continues to deflect, deceive, and mistreat cows. If Alexandre insists on moving ahead with no changes, the question becomes, how will other companies, certifiers, and advocates respond to their commitment to abuse and corruption?

Farm Forward Executive Director Andrew deCoriolis stated, “Alexandre Farm responding to our investigation by doubling down on their lies to consumers flies in the face of the values Alexandre claims to stand for. Despite its denials, we’ve received new evidence that Alexandre has continued the mistreatment, neglect, and abuse our report described. And at the same time, Alexandre has knowingly deceived consumers, continuing to market their products with logos claiming Certified Humane and Regenerative Organic Certified — certifications that pulled or suspended Alexandre. Unfortunately, this kind of ongoing humanewashing is both common and tolerated within the industry. While retailers’ quiet changes to marketing may mean fewer consumers purchase Alexandre’s products, we need retailers and food companies to take bolder action to hold companies accountable for abusing animals and misleading consumers. At this point, companies that continue to do business with Alexandre are supporting the mistreatment of animals and knowingly deceiving their own customers.”

Concerned consumers can continue to support Farm Forward’s push for change by signing up to join its campaign. Animal welfare certifications did not prevent these abuses, and most appear to be broken, so Farm Forward also asks conscientious consumers to consider rejecting dairy products altogether.

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On April 11th, Farm Forward released the results of a comprehensive investigation into Alexandre Family Farms, a leading certified organic, humane, and “regenerative” dairy company.

The investigation uncovered systematic animal abuse and likely violations of several certification standards. Farm Forward reviewed more than a thousand videos and photos, conducted extensive interviews with whistleblowers, and witnessed conditions on Alexandre farms firsthand. What emerged was a pattern of systematic welfare and environmental issues, driven from the top.

Our report was covered in detail in The Atlantic by political and economic reporter Annie Lowrey.

In the week following our posting the report, much happened, including:

• Annie Lowrey’s tweet about The Atlantic’s article received over 1 million views.
• The Atlantic’s editors selected and publicized the story as the “One Story to Read Today.”
• All Alexandre products had been removed from the ASPCA’s Shop With Your Heart.
• All Alexandre products had been removed from FindHumane.com
• Alec’s Ice Cream, which relies on Alexandre dairy, appeared to have taken down and removed from its site navigation its Our Impact page, which claimed that regenerative farming “improves the lives of animals,” that your eating Alec’s Ice Cream is “positively changing our planet for a better future,” and that Alexandre is “proving that cows actually help reverse climate change.”
• Whole Foods Market appeared to have taken down its Restarting Dairy page, which referred to the Alexandres as “environmental stewards,” proudly noted that “Whole Foods Market has been working with the Alexandres for over a decade,” and included a video showing hundreds of calf hutches in which Alexandre admits isolating baby cows for months—with no relief and no ability to set one foot outside—as its standard practice.

Farm Forward is heartened to know that so many in the public, in other advocacy groups, and even among major companies, are already taking our investigation’s extensive, detailed, and highly concerning findings seriously.

Stay tuned in and sign our petition to tell retailers that purchase Alexandre dairy to stop humanewashing.

March 2025:

• A consumer protection law firm files a class action lawsuit against Alexandre Family Farm and Certified Humane (Case #25CV554, US District Court, Southern District of California), seeking damages exceeding $5 million for fraudulent “humane” claims on Alexandre products. Among those submitting the complaint: a law firm known for securing multi-million dollar settlements in consumer protection cases, including a $39.55 million settlement against Monsanto.

September 2024:

• A nonprofit law firm files a suit against Alexandre in Humboldt County, enforcing California criminal statutes that prohibit animal cruelty. The complaint alleges that Alexandre violated California penal code 597, which covers a range of acts considered to be animal abuse, including failing to provide animals with proper food, drink, or shelter, or failing to give animals proper care and attention.
• The reporter who covered our investigation, Annie Lowrey, appears on the Search Engine podcast to talk about her coverage of Alexandre. Search Engine was named “a best podcast of 2023 by Vulture, Time, The Economist, and Vogue.”
• Farm Forward receives notification from National Organic Program (NOP) that NOP has substantiated some of the investigation’s allegations. Farm Forward takes steps to find out more.

August 2024:

• Farm Forward learns that Gus’s Community Market, a California grocery with five locations, has now pulled its Alexandre promos and reduced Alexandre’s product lines and shelf space as a result of the investigation’s findings.
• Farm Forward learns that Walt’s Wholesale Meats, which specializes in slaughtering dairy cows for meat for human consumption, has now stopped accepting all cows from Alexandre Family Farm.
• Farm Forward’s op-ed about Alexandre, greenwashing, the halo effect, and large-scale dairy fraud is published in Modern Farmer and becomes the top article on its homepage.

July 2024:

• Farm Forward informs Andronico’s Community Market of the investigation’s findings and asks them to drop Alexandre’s products.
• Farm Forward informs Walt’s Wholesale Meats of the investigation’s findings and asks them to drop Alexandre’s products.
• The reporter who covered our investigation, Annie Lowrey, appears on Mark Bittman’s podcast to discuss her coverage of Alexandre. Mark Bittman, a food journalist and author of books including Food Matters, has written for the New York Times.

Week of June 24, 2024:

• Farm Forward files a complaint with Organic Tilth—an organic certifier—regarding the mistreatment of cows observed at a Humboldt Auction Yard property.

Week of June 10, 2024:

• Luke’s Local, a premium grocery retailer in San Francisco with three locations, cancels its orders of all Alexandre Family Farm products.

May 23, 2024:

• Farm Forward releases a follow-up blog revealing that Alexandre’s abuse has continued well into 2024.

Week of May 13, 2024:

• Natural food retailer Providore drops Alexandre as a supplier.

Week of May 6, 2024:

• Farm Forward informs Bi-Rite Market of the investigation’s findings and asks them to drop Alexandre’s products.
• Farm Forward informs Luke’s Local of the investigation’s findings and asks them to drop Alexandre’s products.
• Farm Forward informs Rainbow Grocery of the investigation’s findings and asks them to drop Alexandre’s products.
• Farm Forward informs Mollie Stone’s Market of the investigation’s findings and asks them to drop Alexandre’s products.

Week of April 29, 2024:

• The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office Livestock Division supervisor notifies Farm Forward that the Sheriff’s Office received our report on Alexandre Dairy, takes such reports very seriously, and has opened an investigation.
• Certified Humane appears to have delisted Alexandre Family Farms from its list of “Producers who are Certified Humane.”
• Farm Forward encourages Rabobank—a bank with a commitment to animal welfare—to sever ties with Alexandre Family Farm.
• Farm Forward informs Erewhon of the investigation’s findings and asks them to drop Alexandre’s products.
• A California outlet that covers Del Norte County reports on the investigation, including the opening of a Sheriff’s Office inquiry and the suspension of the Regenerative Organic Certified label.

Week of April 22, 2024:

• Farm Forward learns that Regenerative Organic Certified suspended Alexandre’s regenerative certification in February due to an audit report that indicated violations.
• Farm Forward informs Whole Foods Market of the investigation’s findings and asks them to drop Alexandre Family Farm products.
• Farm Forward informs Alec’s Ice Cream of the investigation’s findings and asks them to drop Alexandre as a supplier.
  • Alec’s Ice Cream, which relies on Alexandre dairy, has taken down and removed from its site navigation its Our Impact page, which claimed that regenerative farming “improves the lives of animals,” that its products are “positively changing our planet for a better future,” and that Alexandre is “proving that cows actually help reverse climate change.”
• Farm Forward informs Serenity Kids of the investigation’s findings and asks them to drop Alexandre as a supplier.
  • Serenity Kids responds the next day to say that after receiving our report they launched their own investigation into Alexandre and would take appropriate action based on what they uncover.
• Farm Forward informs Cheddies Crackers of the investigation’s findings and asks them to drop Alexandre as a supplier.
• Farm Forward informs Rumiano Cheese of the investigation’s findings and asks them to drop Alexandre as a supplier.
• Farm Forward informs Once Upon a Farm of the investigation’s findings and asks them to drop Alexandre as a supplier.
• The reporter who covered our investigation, Annie Lowrey, appears on the What’s Next: TBD podcast from Slate to talk about her coverage of Alexandre.

April 19, 2024:

• Farm Forward learns that all Alexandre products have been removed from the ASPCA’s Shop With Your Heart list following the publication of our investigation.
• Farm Forward is notified that all Alexandre products have been dropped from FindHumane.com.
• Although Farm Forward submitted a complaint to Humboldt County Farm Bureau on Monday April 15, requesting a timely response, by 5pm PDT Friday April 19 Farm Forward had still received no reply from the Humboldt County Farm Bureau.
• Alec’s Ice Cream, which relies on Alexandre dairy, appears to have taken down and removed from its site navigation its Our Impact page, which claimed that regenerative farming “improves the lives of animals,” that its products are “positively changing our planet for a better future,” and that Alexandre is “proving that cows actually help reverse climate change.”
• Whole Foods Market appears to have taken down its Restarting Dairy page, which referred to the Alexandres as “environmental stewards,” proudly noted that “Whole Foods Market has been working with the Alexandres for over a decade,” and included a video showing hundreds of calf hutches in which Alexandre admits isolating baby cows for months—with no relief and no ability to set one foot outside—as its standard practice.

April 15, 2024:

• Farm Forward files a standards complaint about Alexandre Family Farm with California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF).
• Farm Forward submits a complaint about Alexandre to the Humboldt County Farm Bureau.
• Farm Forward reaches out to Certified Humane to discuss abuse and neglect of cows managed by Alexandre.
• Farm Forward submits a complaint to California Veterinary Medical Association about animal mistreatment and allegations that Alexandre staff routinely practiced veterinary medicine without a license, including sawing fully grown horns off cows without pain management.
• Farm Forward asks the California Department of Food & Agriculture (CDFA) to revoke Blake Alexandre’s membership in CDFA’s Regenerative Organic Work Group.
• Farm Forward requests that the USDA National Organic Program (NOP) investigate Alexandre’s violations of organic standards, and whether CDFA investigated Alexandre adequately after NOP received a whistleblower complaint about organic dairy cows who were “sick, could barely walk, were extremely thin, mistreated, and full of lungworm.”

April 12, 2024:

• The Atlantic publishes a comprehensive investigative piece of Alexandre’s operations, citing Farm Forward’s report throughout
• Farm Forward asks Alexandre Dairy to acknowledge problems in the dairy industry and work for change.
• Farm Forward files a cruelty complaint with the Humboldt County Sheriff.
• Farm Forward files a water quality complaint with the California Coastal Commission.

April 11, 2024:

• Farm Forward releases report, “Dairy Deception: Corruption and Consumer Fraud at Alexandre Family Farm.”

March 12, 2024:

• Farm Forward receives an email from Alexandre Dairy, likely attempting to delay the publishing of the report.

March 8, 2024:

• Late morning: Farm Forward receives an intimidating “lawyer letter” from Alexandre’s legal counsel, Davis Wright Tremaine, a law firm that regularly represents big dairy.
• Early morning: Farm Forward is informed that information was accidentally leaked to Alexandre, tipping them off to the pending report.

January–March, 2024:

• Multiple whistleblowers continually provide Farm Forward evidence of ongoing systematic nontreatment of sick and injured animals at Alexandre Dairy.

December, 2023:

• Farm Forward staff verify at a California cattle auction that sick, emaciated cattle with egregious untreated or inadequately treated conditions are being sold at auction by Alexandre Dairy.

June–Dec 2023:

• Multiple whistleblowers provide hundreds of videos, hundreds of photos, and more than a dozen affidavits.

January–May 2023:

• Multiple whistleblowers come forth verifying and expanding original allegations.

December 2022:

• First whistleblower approaches Farm Forward with uncorroborated complaints about Alexandre Family Farm (Alexandre Dairy). At first Farm Forward doubts the credibility of the complaint.

A new investigation by Farm Forward and Our Honor finds that the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is rewarding big meat and egg companies with bailouts to compensate for losses from bird flu outbreaks—even as those companies’ very own factory farming practices are a main cause of the outbreaks to begin with. The New York Times, working off our research, reported that giant meat and egg companies like Tyson, Hormel, and Rembrandt Foods are getting hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to compensate them for losses from highly pathogenic avian influenza (bird flu). However, the government is doing nothing to demand that they reform the conditions that lead to bird flu outbreaks. More on the implications of these findings can be found in our published op-ed in Newsweek.

Through Freedom of Information Act requests, Our Honor uncovered the recipients of the USDA’s Indemnity and Compensation program. The results are damning. The top 60 companies that benefited from the bailout funds took over half a billion dollars of federal money. Notably, Jennie-O, a subsidiary of Hormel, was granted the highest disbursement: a stunning $88 million to one company. In the same year as the USDA’s bailout, Hormel reported a revenue of $3.2 billion. In other words, The federal government is giving taxpayer dollars to hugely profitable, large-scale factory farms.

Collectively, the USDA has allocated a total of $715 million towards bird flu compensation in just the past couple of years. Stunningly, these payments are not contingent on industrial operations making changes that reduce pandemic risk (e.g., by lessening extreme confinement). In other words, industrial operations that mass kill millions of birds as a result of bird flu—a zoonotic disease that devastates precisely because of the conditions of their operation—are given millions of dollars to be compensated for their systemic failure. On top of that, the policy does nothing proactive to rectify the conditions that, more broadly, lead to avian influenza. This would be like US taxpayers paying BP to clean up the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and doing so without requiring any changes to reduce the risk of future spills. It’s no wonder then that the poultry industry isn’t taking meaningful action to reduce the risk of future bird flu outbreaks.

Importantly, the mass depopulation method that many of these companies use is inconceivably cruel. The most common method used to mass kill chickens or turkeys is ventilation shutdown plus (VSD+), which involves shutting down the ventilation systems in poultry houses and pumping in heat, leading to a rise in temperature and humidity to lethal levels over many hours. Tens of millions of birds have been killed this way.  

Unsurprisingly, many of the companies receiving bailouts have had other flu outbreaks. In 2015, Rembrandt had a massive outbreak at an Iowa complex that resulted in the mass killing of 5.5 million hens. In 2022, Rembrandt had another outbreak, killed 5.3 million birds, and then laid off 250 employees.

And more recently, cows at several dairy farms across the country have tested positive for highly pathogenic avian influenza. In other words, there are now cases of the virus jumping from poultry to cattle. While the federal government assured that the risk to the public remains low, it’s still concerning that multiple operations are reporting cross-species infection. And early this April, the Washington Post reported a case in Texas, where a person contracted bird flu after contact with infected dairy cattle.

“Fixing” a problem that industrial poultry created

Policymakers continue to ignore the scientific consensus that industrial poultry farming poses a clear and present danger to public health from increased pandemic risk.

As the UN Report, Preventing the Next Pandemic, states:

“The intensification of agriculture, and in particular of domestic livestock farming (animal husbandry), results in large numbers of genetically similar animals. These are often bred for higher production levels; more recently, they have also been bred for disease resistance. As a result, domestic animals are being kept in close proximity to each other and often in less than ideal conditions. Such genetically homogenous host populations are more vulnerable to infection than genetically diverse populations, because the latter are more likely to include some individuals that better resist disease.” (pg. 15)

If the horrors of the COVID-19 pandemic should have taught us one thing, it’s that we have to take pandemic prevention just as seriously as preparedness. A serious commitment to preventing the next pandemic must tackle the sources of greatest risk—which includes factory poultry farming. To truly protect ourselves from future pandemic risk, we have to end Big Poultry.

Farm Forward plans to push the USDA and Congress to take action to address the root causes of pandemic risk. Sign up below for more updates about our work.

In the Vatican Gardens after a private audience with the Pope, author and Farm Forward founding board member Jonathan Safran Foer gave a keynote address in response to Pope Francis’s new Apostolic Exhortation, Laudaute Deum. Foer argued that food systems reform and eating fewer animal products are important and necessary modes of addressing climate change. He also discussed the necessity for policy change and individual action in meeting the moment. Below is the text from Foer’s speech.

It is a tremendous honor to participate today. Before having the opportunity to read the text of Pope Francis’s “Laudate Deum,” I had no intention of bringing my one-year-old daughter to this event. But I was so profoundly moved by the wisdom, courage and moral urgency of the Pope’s words, that I wanted her—a representative of my, and our, future—to be present.

In 1942, a twenty-eight-year-old Catholic in the Polish underground, Jan Karski, embarked on a mission to travel from Nazi-occupied Poland to London, and ultimately America, to inform world leaders of what the Germans were perpetrating. In preparation for his journey, he met with several resistance groups, accumulating information and testimonies to bring to the West. In his memoir, he recounts a meeting with the head of the Jewish Socialist Alliance:

The leader gripped my arm with such violence that it ached. I looked into his wild, staring eyes with awe, moved by the deep, unbearable pain in them. “Tell the leaders that this is no case for politics or tactics. Tell them that the Earth must be shaken to its foundation, the world must be aroused. Perhaps then it will wake up, understand, perceive…”

After surviving as perilous a journey as could be imagined, Karski arrived in Washington, D.C., in June 1943. There, he met with Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, one of the great legal minds in American history, and himself a Jew. After hearing Karski’s accounts of the clearing of the Warsaw Ghetto and of exterminations in the concentration camps, after asking him a series of increasingly specific questions (“What is the height of the wall that separates the ghetto from the rest of the city?”), Frankfurter paced the room in silence, then took his seat and said, “Mr. Karski, a man like me talking to a man like you must be totally frank. So I must say I am unable to believe what you told me.” When Karski’s colleague pleaded with Frankfurter to accept Karski’s account, Frankfurter responded, “I didn’t say that this young man is lying. I said I am unable to believe him. My mind, my heart, they are made in such a way that I cannot accept it.”

Frankfurter didn’t question the truthfulness of Karski’s story. He didn’t dispute that the Germans were systematically murdering the Jews of Europe—his own relatives. And he didn’t respond that while he was persuaded and horrified, there was nothing he could do. Rather, he admitted not only his inability to believe the truth, but his awareness of that inability. Frankfurter was unable to wake up, understand, perceive.

Our minds and hearts are well built to perform certain tasks, and poorly designed for others. We are good at things like calculating the path of a hurricane, and bad at things like deciding to get out of its way. We excel at taking care of ourselves, and struggle to make the leaps of empathy required to take care of others. The further those “others” are—geographically, in time, and between species—the greater we struggle.

Although many of climate change’s accompanying calamities—extreme weather events, floods and wildfires, displacement and resource scarcity—are vivid, personal, and suggestive of a worsening situation, they often don’t feel that way in aggregate. They often feel abstract, distant, and isolated, rather than like beams of an ever-strengthening narrative. The earth is telling us a story that we seem unable to believe.

So-called climate change deniers reject the conclusion that science has reached: the planet is warming because of human activities. But what about those of us who say we accept the reality of human-caused climate change? We may not think the scientists are lying, but do we have the will to believe what they tell us? Such a belief would surely awaken us to the urgent ethical imperative attached to it, shake our collective conscience, and render us willing to make small sacrifices in the present to avoid cataclysmic ones in the future.

Intellectually accepting the truth isn’t virtuous in and of itself. And it won’t save us. As a child, I was often told “you know better” when I did something I shouldn’t have done. Knowing was the difference between a mistake and an offense.

If we accept the factual reality that we are destroying the planet and dooming future generations, but are unable to believe it and change our behaviors in meaningful ways, we reveal ourselves to be just another variety of denier. When the future distinguishes between these two kinds of denial, which will appear to be a grave error and which a sin?

Perhaps the most courageous feature of Pope Francis’s paper is that he pointedly calls us “to move beyond the mentality of appearing to be concerned but not having the courage needed to produce substantial changes.” It is more comfortable to speak about these changes in abstract terms—the kind that make us feel good when advertised on t-shirts or cheered in rallies—than the practical ones that require us to alter our lives. Yes, there are constraints on how quickly and how much we can change, there are conventions and economic realities that limit the parameters of the possible. Yet we remain free to choose among possible options—and there are many within reach that could alter the trajectory of existence.

The most influential decisions will be at the policy level, shaping the practices of nations, but we also can make decisions in our own lives and local institutions that matter more than crude math might suggest. As Pope Francis emphasizes, “Efforts by households to reduce pollution and waste, and to consume with prudence, are creating a new culture”—a culture that is already playing, and will play, a decisive role in rallying larger collective actions. Choosing a form of transportation with lower carbon emissions, or reducing the consumption of animal products, especially meat, are actions that can matter at the individual and the policy level. The power of food system change to alter the climate is particularly noteworthy and only just beginning to be realized.

We need structural change, yes. We need a global shift away from fossil fuels. We need to enforce something akin to a carbon tax, build walkable cities, and rapidly electrify homes and communities from increasingly renewable energy sources. We need to acknowledge the disproportionate obligations of countries, like my own, that have been disproportionately responsible for climate change. We will likely need a political revolution. These changes will require shifts that individuals alone cannot realize. But putting aside the fact that collective revolutions are made up of individuals, led by individuals, and reinforced by individual revolutions, we would have no chance of achieving our goal of limiting environmental destruction if individuals don’t make the very individual decision to live differently: to drive and fly less, to eat less meat, and to do the hard work of believing in both the catastrophe we are creating and our capacity to avert it. Of course it’s true that one person’s decisions will not change the world, but of course it’s true that the sum of hundreds of millions of such decisions will.

This is not to understate the challenge of changing one’s life. I have written two books about ethical eating and still regularly struggle to make choices that reflect my beliefs. It is now clear that this will be a lifelong struggle for me. I began these remarks by mentioning that my daughter is joining me today. We flew here. I made the decision that the carbon expense of this particular trip was worth it. These are the kinds of choices each of us must face, and we won’t arrive at the same answers. What’s needed is not complete agreement, much less purity, but our belief, expressed through our best and most thoughtful efforts.

Also needed is hope. There is an understandable tendency among those who care to catastrophize. I often wrestle with despair in my own thinking about climate change. We need not despair, and we cannot despair. If we can acknowledge in our hearts what our heads have already concluded about the struggle before us, the courage to change will follow.

Pope Francis addresses his Laudate Deum to “all people of good will,” and this sentiment presides over the document. What does it mean to be a person of good will if not to make ethical choices? What is ecological grace if not the sum of daily, hourly decisions to take a bit less than our hands can hold, to eat other than what we might crave in any given moment, to create limits for ourselves so that we all might be able to share in the bounty? Surely we can now see that the sum of these changes will not be the deprivation some have told us to fear, but the overcoming of a global catastrophe and our most valuable gift to the future.

The Talmud tells of a sage who encountered a man planting a carob tree by the side of the road. He asked the man how long it would take to bear fruit. “Seventy years,” the man replied. “And do you think you will live another seventy years to eat the fruit of this tree?” “Perhaps not,” the man answered. “However, when I was born into this world, I found many carob trees planted by my father and grandfather. Just as they planted trees for me, I am planting trees for my children and grandchildren so they will be able to eat their fruit.”

We often think of our legacy as passing along the things we amass in life, but this must change. The most profound inheritance we bestow is not what we acquire, but the beliefs with which we struggle, the efforts we make to live by them, and perhaps above all, what we are ready to let go of. As St. Francis reminds us: “when you leave this earth, you can take with you nothing that you have received–only what you have given.”

The Good Food Purchasing Program (GFPP) recently released Version 3.0 of its standards for food service institutions. Used by more than 70 institutions throughout the country, the Good Food Purchasing standards are transforming our food system, including by reducing meat consumption and shifting purchasing toward more humane methods of raising farmed animals.

Animal welfare represents one of five key categories in GFPP’s values-based purchasing standards. “For years we’ve worked with the GFPP to shift food consumption patterns by leveraging the purchasing power of public institutions like schools, jails, and hospitals,” Farm Forward Executive Director Andrew deCoriolis said. He added, “The improvements made in Version 3.0 will increase that shift, representing a ‘much less and better’ approach to buying meat and other animal products — one we’re proud to support.”

Included in the updated standards are two important changes for animal welfare and meat reduction, championed by Farm Forward.

The updated food purchasing standards will:

1. Ensure that institutions’ efforts to reduce meat consumption have the effect of decreasing the total number of animals raised for food. The new standards aim to prevent a situation wherein the decreased purchase of, say, beef, leads to an increase in the purchase of chicken.
2. Increase the available opportunities to meet animal welfare standards by reducing meat, for example by offering plant-based dishes as the default option. The standards incentivize organizations to reduce over time the amount of meat they serve per meal.

Other changes reflected in Version 3.0 include animal welfare certification standards that represent higher welfare animal products. Read about other updates included in this newest version.

By advocating for values-based food purchasing, Farm Forward is able to make an impact on a large scale. Since 2016 we have helped lead the creation of GFPP’s animal welfare standards and provided free consulting and technical support to help institutions meet them.

Beyond our work with GFPP, we have long championed institutional policy work to change how the country eats and farms, including through programs like the Leadership Circle and DefaultVeg.

We are proud to have played an integral role in developing the latest version of the Good Food Purchasing Standards, and we will continue to fight to shape food policy that moves us away from factory farming and toward more humane and plant-forward food.

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.”

Photo: Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals Media

Avian flu has spread swiftly across farms globally since late 2020, leaving bird populations devastated in its wake and consumers facing higher egg prices. In the United States, the outbreak has resulted in the culling of more than 58.7 million birds across 47 states in a series of more than 830 outbreaks.

The high price of eggs is just one outcome of bird flu. Far more worrying is the possibility that the disease could adapt to human bodies and lead to the next global pandemic. Though eating chicken or eggs is unlikely to lead to illness, experts agree that the pandemic risk of avian flu is real, stemming largely from the way birds are raised on factory farms and the particular breeds of birds that have come to dominate the supply chain.

What is bird flu?

Bird flu, also known as avian influenza or by the names of its various subtypes such as H5N1, refers to a group of viral infections that exist naturally in aquatic birds in the wild. These viruses also have the potential to spread among other types of wild birds and mammals, domestic fowl, humans, and a variety of other animals.

There are four different categories of influenza: types A, B, C, and D. Avian influenza is categorized as a type A virus. The viruses in this category are different from the other three types in part because they spread more easily between species. Type A influenzas can more readily proliferate and have a higher risk of resulting in a pandemic. Categorization is further defined by the animal species from which the virus originated, for example swine flu or, in this case, avian flu.

How is bird flu transmitted to humans?

Most human cases of avian influenza start with close contact between a human and an infected bird, their carcass, their droppings, or their environment. Infections of people with H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b, the strain causing the current illness among birds around the world, are rare. Transmission between people has not yet been observed. In February 2023, two human infections of H5N1 occurred in Cambodia, the first in the country since 2014, prompting fears about the widespread bird flu’s potentially rising infectiousness between humans, but these were later attributed to a different form of the virus (clade 2.3.2.1c). However, experts are concerned about future pandemic risk caused by a strain’s capacity to evolve to infect people more easily.

The virus could accomplish this in one of two ways: mutation—in which the virus changes to evade the human immune system’s response, as occurred in the pandemic of 1918—or reassortment—which entails avian flu and a human flu infecting a person at the same time and swapping genes, creating a new and more infectious or virulent strain, as occurred in the pandemics of 1957 and 1968.1

Currently there is no vaccine to protect against contracting bird flu. The seasonal flu vaccine that people are advised to take every year does not prevent the contraction of avian flu.

What are the symptoms of bird flu in humans?

In humans, the virus can cause no symptoms at all, cause a mild illness, or come with a range of indicators ranging from moderate to severe, among them: headaches, fever, sore throat, fatigue, body aches, and even seizures in particularly acute cases. The infection fatality rate of avian flu is much higher than that of COVID-19.

According to the CDC, since 1997 there have been 890 people diagnosed with H5N1, and of these, about half have died from the illness. A different strain of H5 bird flu, H5N6, was identified in people in China in 2014. Since then 81 people across China and Laos have been diagnosed with it. Among those who were hospitalized for the disease, 30 percent died.

What are the symptoms of avian flu in birds?

According to the American Veterinary Medical Association, there are several indicators that a flock of birds may be experiencing an outbreak of avian influenza. Symptoms include nasal discharge and sneezing, diarrhea, purpling or swelling of the body, and even sudden and inexplicable death.

On an industrial farm, if avian flu exposure takes place, the entire flock of birds is killed, not just the sick individuals. This is done in an attempt to prevent the spread of disease to other flocks, wild birds, and the people working at the facility. The destruction of entire flocks has contributed to the extremely high number of birds that have been slaughtered as a result of the current avian flu outbreak. Many of these birds are killed in inhumane ways, such as having water-based foam sprayed over them causing them to suffocate, or sealing off their sheds and pumping carbon dioxide into the air. In some instances, birds have also been killed by simply cutting the airflow into their shed and causing temperatures to rise to lethal levels.

How is bird flu diagnosed in humans?

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, hundreds of millions of people have become familiar with swabbing noses or throats for PCR tests. A similar process, in which a sample is collected from a sick person’s nose or throat, is performed when testing for avian influenza. An alternative way of diagnosing bird flu is by testing phlegm that is coughed up by the sick person.

How is bird flu treated in humans?

A person who is suspected of having avian influenza will likely be asked by their doctor to quarantine at home and be given medications to manage the symptoms of the illness. These antiviral medications can help by reducing the severity of the illness while also increasing the chances of survival. Once a diagnosis has been made, there are few options for the ailing, aside from quarantine, prescription antiviral medications, and hoping for the best.

Can you get bird flu from eating chicken?

According to the World Health Organization, there have been rare infections of people who consume dishes with raw, infected poultry blood. However, no evidence suggests that avian flu can be contracted from consuming properly prepared chicken products.

Can you eat eggs from a chicken with bird flu?

No evidence suggests that you can contract avian flu from consuming the eggs of an infected chicken.

Should we stop eating chicken due to bird flu?

While the consumption of chickens and eggs may not place individuals at risk of contracting bird flu, factory farming poultry is a major risk factor in producing the next pandemic. Experts agree that bird flu emerged on industrial poultry farms, and that some bird flu strains have already spread from birds to people. There is consensus among experts that the ongoing industrial farming of poultry makes the emergence of new, more dangerous strains of bird flu—which could more easily spread from bird to humans—far more likely.2 Much of the risk posed by factory-farmed chickens results from their genetic uniformity and the conditions in which they live. The industrial farming status quo gambles with public health. Only with a radical restructuring might raising chickens on farms with a reduced pandemic risk be possible.

Why do factory farms increase risk?

While all factory farms present some risk of causing zoonotic disease, the risk produced by chicken farms is the most severe due to the genetic similarity of the birds, the scale and density of production, the close human-animal contact, and the undermining of the birds’ health and immune systems through selective breeding and poor conditions.

At any given time a single barn on one chicken factory farm is likely to contain over 30,000 birds. These birds live in tight quarters that are ideal for disease transmission, and because they have been bred for efficiency from similar stock they have very similar genetics. The people who work directly with the chickens provide the perfect opportunity for a strain of bird flu to make the jump from chickens to humans.3

How can risk be reduced?

To reduce the risk of pandemics associated with animal agriculture, particularly chickens, we must change the way we eat and farm. Given that many of our recent pandemics originated from animals, including COVID-19, changing animal agriculture will save not only animal but likely also save human lives.4

The changes start with what we eat. Instead of consuming large amounts of chicken and other poultry products, we must shift diets toward plant-based foods. We recommend that people eat conscientiously, as few animals as possible, ideally none. Since some people will continue to eat animals, though, we need to completely reshape how animals are farmed. The chickens currently raised on commercial farms should be replaced with hardier, slower-growing, heritage birds. Another shift that farms need to make is to take a cue from the “social distancing” required by the COVID-19 pandemic and dramatically reduce the density at which the chickens are housed. These measures would make it more difficult for diseases to spread from bird to bird, reducing the chances of human exposure or a mutation that leads to the next pandemic.

Conclusion

Continuing to raise genetically similar birds by the tens of thousands, tightly packed together in sheds, is a recipe for disaster. Though one individual consuming the eggs and meat of these birds is very unlikely to lead to the spread of disease, the aggregate demand of individuals shapes agricultural production. Failing to shift our dietary habits and farming techniques puts all of us at risk.

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.

Over the last several years controversy surrounding lab-grown, or cultured, meat has exploded. Ranchers have argued over whether or not it should be considered meat, while vegans have argued about whether or not it should be considered vegan. One thing is clear: lab-grown meat has the capacity to dramatically change the way we eat, and the impacts that our diets have on the world around us.

What is lab-grown meat?

Lab-grown meat, also called cultured or cultivated meat, is grown from the cells of an animal, without any need to slaughter an animal to obtain the meat. The animal’s cells are cultivated in stainless steel drums called bioreactors, which are engineered to encourage replication of cells or growth of biological mass. The products that result from this process have been met with excitement due to their potential to replace the millions of animals being raised on factory farms around the world. Because cultured meat is produced in laboratory environments, it does not suffer from some of the contamination and health issues that plague traditional meat producers, such as antibiotic resistance and foodborne and zoonotic illnesses.

What is lab-grown meat made of?

Lab-grown meat is made of the same cells that make up meat from slaughtered animals. The only difference is that cultured meat is produced in labs, whereas traditional meat requires the slaughter of animals.1

Lab-grown meat production process

The process of growing meat in a lab starts with animal cells. If the cells are collected directly from an animal, the animals do not need to be slaughtered. Once the cells have been gathered, they are placed into cultivators where they are provided with a growth medium to encourage them to multiply. Alterations to the medium and the use of a scaffolding structure trigger cells to differentiate into fat, sinew, and other elements that help to recreate the textures that occur in farm-raised meat.

Why are people growing meat in labs?

The appeal of lab-grown meat stems from the impact that it could have on the environment, public health, and animal welfare. If it can be brought to scale, cell-cultured meat could be a key step toward more sustainable diets, fewer animals being raised for slaughter, the eventual phasing out of factory farms, and improved public health.

Is meat grown in a lab healthy?

Cultured meat is cellularly indistinguishable from the flesh of animals raised on a factory farm. However, there are several aspects of health in which cultured meat surpasses traditionally farmed meat. For example, animal agriculture is already one of the major contributors to antibiotic resistance worldwide, and the use of subtherapeutic antibiotics in animal farming is set to increase further in the coming years. Cellular meat does not require the heavy use of antibiotics, so its production does not contribute to this ongoing public health crisis.

Another aspect of cultured meat that makes it healthier than its farm-raised equivalent is its lower likelihood of causing zoonotic diseases. While animal agriculture is likely to be a source of future pandemics caused by illnesses that jump from animals to people, this risk is minimized in cell-cultured agriculture, because there are no animals involved once the cells have been collected.

Is lab-grown meat bad?

One potential issue with lab-grown meat over the long term is that its production on a large scale may encourage people to continue to overconsume meat products. Consuming red meat, particularly, has been linked to a variety of health issues including heart disease. Given that cellular methods are able to produce red meat without the massive environmental and animal welfare tolls of raising cattle, it is possible that individual consumption could go up, helping to perpetuate poor health outcomes in the United States.

Other issues with lab-grown meat have to do with people’s uncertainty about its relation to meat from slaughtered animals. Cell-cultured meat has been the subject of some discussion in religious communities, for example, concerning whether it meets religious dietary restrictions.

Lab-grown meat pros and cons

Any consideration of lab-grown meat must include discussion of its pros and cons.

Pros:

• Animal welfare. Lab-grown meat does not require that animals suffer like they do on a tremendous scale in industrial farming, which produces more than 99 percent of our current meat supply.
• Environment. Lab-grown meat requires less land and water than traditional meat, and produces fewer greenhouse gasses.
• Worker welfare. Industrial animal agriculture contributes to many health problems for its workers. Slaughterhouses are one of the most dangerous industries for workers in America today.
• Public health. The pandemic and antibiotic resistance risks of lab-grown meat are minimal compared to those of factory farms.

Cons:

• Cultural acceptance. Farm Forward’s most recent consumer survey shows that two-thirds (67 percent) of Americans say that they would eat lab-grown meat. That leaves about one-third (33 percent) who currently would not.
• Regulatory challenges. At the moment, lab-grown meat is prohibited from commercial availability in all countries except for Singapore.
• Economics. Conventional meat benefits from government subsidies. Whether or not lab grown meat could ever receive comparable subsidies, it would have to achieve a much larger scale of production to compete with conventional meat on price.
• Technical challenges. Some skeptics believe that the technical and biological challenges that would be involved in producing mammalian cells at a large scale are impossible to overcome.

Lab-grown meat versus real meat

Lab-grown meat and “real” meat from farm-raised animals are indistinguishable on a cellular level. The major differences between them stem from their methods of production. For example, farm-raised meat is a major contributor to climate change. If adopted on a large scale, lab-grown meat would contribute less to global warming and air pollution while using less water and land, particularly in conjunction with the use of renewable energy.

Is lab-grown meat vegetarian?

Vegetarians have traditionally excluded meat from their diets, usually for ethical, environmental, health, or religious reasons. Because lab-grown meat is the same substance as meat that has been produced conventionally, some might not consider lab-grown meat vegetarian. However, because lab-grown meat has a much lower environmental footprint than traditional meat, and can be produced without harming an animal, some might consider lab-grown meat vegetarian.

The nutritional profile of lab-grown meat appears to be identical to traditional meat, so people who eat a vegetarian diet for individual health reasons would likely not eat lab-grown meat.

Some religious communities with doctrines related to eating meat are debating whether lab-grown meat should be treated the same as traditional meat, since, for example, there is no animal slaughtered to produce lab-grown meat, so religious rules pertaining to slaughter cannot be observed.

Is lab-grown meat vegan?

Vegans have traditionally excluded all animal products, including meat, from their diets, usually for ethical, environmental, health, or religious reasons. There is potential for cultured meat to be considered vegan. Some people who follow a vegan lifestyle seek to minimize suffering or environmental devastation, while others view veganism as not eating, wearing, or otherwise using any animal products. From the former perspective, cultured meat could be considered vegan, because no animals are necessarily raised and killed in order to produce it. However, those who adhere to the latter perspective may not consider lab-grown meat vegan, as on the cellular level it is the same product as traditionally-produced meat.

Did the FDA approve lab-grown meat?

The Food and Drug Association (FDA) recently issued “no questions” letters to UPSIDE Foods and to GOOD Meat (the cultured meat division of Eat Just, Inc.) for their cultivated chicken products. These letters do not constitute approvals of these companies’ lab-grown meat products, but rather signal that at this point in the development process the FDA is accepting the companies’ conclusion that their products are safe. There is still a process that their products, and those made by other cell-based meat companies, will need to undergo before hitting supermarket shelves in the U.S. Part of this process includes getting approval from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Is lab-grown meat available in the U.S.?

Lab-grown meat is not yet available in the United States, as it is still pending approval by the USDA.

When can people buy lab-grown meat?

Though lab-grown meat recently took a big step toward hitting grocery store shelves when the FDA chose not to contest one company’s safety statement, there are still lengthy approval processes to move through. Products must be inspected and approved by the USDA before they can be sold in grocery stores. With dozens of different companies, each specializing in a specific cell-based product such as lamb, seafood, pork, or beef, the process of getting a cell-based option to consumers will still take some time.

Lab-grown meat companies

The global lab-grown meat industry was worth $246.9 million in 2022. The industry is expected to expand exponentially through 2030. The growth and promise of the industry have attracted a plethora of different companies, each working to create a specific cell-based product.

• Believer Meats. Previously Future Meat Technologies, this company focuses on increasing the efficiency of cell-based meat production.
• UPSIDE Foods. UPSIDE Foods focuses on creating cultivated chicken.
• Mosa Meat. Mosa Meat is a Dutch company focused on creating cell-cultivated beef.
• SuperMeat. This company focuses on lab-grown chicken, which they then use to create recipes within their test kitchen.
• Aleph Farms. This company cultivates steak in their labs.
• Bond Pet Food. Bond cultivates chicken protein, dries it, and grinds it into a fine powder, for use in dry and wet dog and cat foods.

What challenges in lab-grown meat need to be overcome?

Lab-grown meat still faces a large number of daunting challenges in its production process before it can reach a large enough scale to effectively compete against industrial raised meat.

A vegan growth medium

When first conceived, cell-cultured meat used fetal bovine serum as the medium for growing the meat. However, in recent years several companies have announced that they have created new animal-free growth mediums that are just as effective at cultivating and encouraging cell growth as their predecessors.

Mass production

Lab-grown meat companies have struggled with cultivating meat quickly enough to mass produce it. There are some signs of progress, such as facilities already launched internationally that can produce as much as 1,000 pounds of lab-grown meat a day.

Texture

Detractors of cultivated meat may doubt whether it’s possible to create meat in a lab that shares the texture of farm-raised meat. Conventional meat consists of about 90 percent muscle fibers and smaller amounts of fat, connective, nervous, and vascular tissues. This combination gives meat certain chewing characteristics such as cohesiveness, springiness, and resilience to which meat eaters have grown accustomed. Texture has long been a sticking point for cell-cultured meat companies working to create more complex meats (as opposed to highly processed meats like chicken nuggets).  A recent analysis of lab-grown meat used in frankfurters, turkey breast cold cuts, and chicken breasts found that the texture was very similar to the farm-raised products being imitated.

In addition, lab-grown meat faces a number of regulatory, cultural, and economic challenges that it must overcome for production to reach the scale necessary to compete with traditional meat on price.

Will lab-grown meat replace factory farming?

Lab-grown meat will likely play an important role in the elimination of factory farming—assuming that the products can be brought to market at a cost similar to industrially raised animal products—but it won’t be the only factor. Lab-grown meat faces an uphill battle in several areas. It will take some time for lab-grown meat to become culturally accepted as an alternative to traditional meat. Another potential hurdle comes from farmers, who may attempt to further increase production efficiency and decrease costs as they seek to compete with lab-grown meat. If industrial farms’ stocking densities increase, scales expands, and animals are treated increasingly as cogs in a machine, this would likely result in even worse consequences for animals, people, and the environment.

However, even if lab-grown meat could take over a small percentage of the meat market this would likely result in tens of millions of fewer animals raised in industrial farms, this would be a huge step forward.

What would happen to farmers and their animals if cultivated meat took off?

Cultured meat has been in the works for decades and still has many regulatory and production hurdles to clear before it hits grocery store shelves. In even the most optimistic scenarios, lab-grown meat would initially be available only in a limited number of outlets. The public’s uptake of lab-grown meat as a staple protein source would be gradual. Therefore, factory farms would not be eliminated overnight. Rather, cell-based meat could be one of the driving forces behind reducing the sizes of factory farms over a longer period of time. This phase-out provides ample time for farmers to retire or adapt to the changing market.

As we have written elsewhere,

[Lab-grown] meats will play a key role in replacing the need for factory farming by providing nutritious, desirable, low-cost products, but even assuming wide adoption of these technologies a sizable group of people will remain committed to eating farmed animals. Bearing those consumers in mind, defeating factory farming will require a second strategy: providing an adequate supply of animal products from higher (and the highest) welfare conditions. Farm Forward’s strongly supports plant based/cellular meat, but we would be unwise to put all of our eggs in one basket. Plant based/cellular meat and higher welfare meat must work synergistically if we are to create a world free of factory farming. We must not lose sight of either.

Conclusion

Cell-based meat has come a long way since the first burger from a lab was produced in 2013. Since then, intense research has resulted in a vast array of products. While many challenges remain in the decades ahead, lab-grown meat may become a significant force reducing society’s dependence on the factory farms that have proven so devastating to animal welfare and the climate and environment.

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.

Today, Senator Blumenthal (D-CT), along with Senators Booker (D-NJ), Warren (D-MA), and Whitehouse (D-RI), sent a letter to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) asking them to review the integrity of animal welfare claims like “humanely raised” and “sustainably raised” on meat products. The letter cites a recently published Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) report documenting the USDA’s failure to regulate animal-raising claims on meat found in grocery stores. Over 80 percent of the animal-raising claims on meat and poultry products that AWI requested information about from the USDA had no, or inadequate, information submitted to the USDA for the approval of the claim. Farm Forward and AWI consulted with Senator Blumenthal’s office to make them aware of the findings of the study and to encourage them to take action with the USDA to protect consumers from humanewashing.

The USDA Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) is responsible for regulating all labels on meat and poultry products. FSIS is charged with ensuring label accuracy taking action when systemic mislabeling is uncovered. AWI’s report, along with Farm Forward’s own investigation into “raised without antibiotics” last year, highlight major failures by the USDA to protect the public.

AWI also uncovered documentation that producers submitted—purportedly to substantiate claims of “humanely raised” or “sustainably raised”—indicating that producers may not have gone beyond (dismal) industry standards. Many consumers would find this troubling, given the high expectations they have for meat and poultry products with animal welfare labels.

Farm Forward has long been critical of the USDA’s regulation of terms like “humanely raised” and “free range.” Since many animal-raising claims have no legal definition, producers create their own definitions. The new findings by AWI deepen our concern that the USDA’s failure to define animal-raising claims, and their apparent failures to regulate even the minimal standards that do exist, contribute to consumer confusion, harm higher welfare farmers, and ultimately harm farmed animals.

Accordingly, we’re calling on the USDA to define terms like “humanely raised,” “sustainably raised,” and “raised without antibiotics,” to ensure that, at minimum, those terms require companies to meet standards meaningfully higher than conventional industry practices. Labeling reform must also require that standards be verified through on-farm auditing and residue testing. Standardizing label terms and evaluating common animal-raising claims would make it more difficult for meat companies to use humanewashing tactics to sell their products.

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Updated February 23, 2023: A federal court ruled that undercover investigations and whistleblowing activities are protected under the First Amendment—effectively rejecting North Carolina’s “Anti-Sunshine” ag-gag law. This ruling marks a turning point in the nationwide movement to overturn unconstitutional ag-gag laws. Read more here.

Updated June 16, 2020: MAJOR VICTORY! On Friday, in a stunning decision, a federal judge struck down North Carolina’s “Ag-gag” law, ruling that several of its provisions are unconstitutional and violate the First Amendment. See the full decision here.

Donate now to help us strike down another unconstitutional ag-gag law!

Updated September 3, 2019: Today Public Justice on behalf of Farm Forward and a coalition of other plaintiffs filed a motion for summary judgement asking the Court to enjoin North Carolina from enforcing the “Anti-Sunshine Law” and declare it unconstitutional. This “Ag-gag” law is meant to punishes anyone—employees, journalists, and even individual community members—who investigate the practices of a property owner or employer to bring illegal or dangerous behavior to light. This Ag-gag law is especially egregious because of the all encompassing nature of the language used preventing any kind of whistleblowing about federal, state or private industry.

Updated June 5, 2018: The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled on June 5, 2018 that our federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the North Carolina anti-sunshine law can move forward, reversing the decision of the federal district court.

Updated July 20, 2016: Earlier this month in an attempt to fight an ag-gag lawsuit, North Carolina’s Attorney General and the Chancellor of the University of North Carolina opposed the filing of an Amicus Brief by a coalition of plaintiffs including Farm Forward. They are attempting to prevent the court from considering the expert opinion of two scholars in constitutional law and federal procedure.

Around the nation law professors seeking to provide an academic perspective on a legal question before the court routinely make such contributions. In the Idaho ag-gag case, the state recently accepted an Amicus Brief submitted with expert opinion. This news highlights the dangerous and unparalleled nature of North Carolina’s opposition.

Farm Forward reached out to Professor Jack Preis, one of the constitutional law experts to provide an opinion in the North Carolina Amicus Brief, to ask him about the opposition. He stated, “UNC seems to believe that I am an apologist for the animal rights movement. But the reality is that I have no dog in this fight. My job is to tell the truth about matters of federal jurisdiction, and whether I write an amicus brief depends chiefly on what the truth is, not on who it will help.”

Our fight in North Carolina is just beginning.

For immediate release: February 25, 2016

Greensboro, NC  — Today Farm Forward joined a federal lawsuit to strike down North Carolina’s ag-gag law, which went into effect January 1 despite Governor McCrory’s veto. The law punishes whistleblowers for exposing animal abuse, human rights violations, and anything else that employers wish to hide from the public.

After defeating a similar law in Idaho, which violated both the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution, Farm Forward’s General Counsel Michael McFadden says the group is ready to take on another challenge.

“This is the kind of law you’d expect in North Korea, not North Carolina,” says McFadden. “Ag-gag protects abusers and punishes citizens for exercising their right to free speech. These laws have no place in America.”

Farm Forward has long been a watchdog of the American food system, from its new project BuyingPoultry, which lets consumers find higher-welfare poultry products and plant-based alternatives, to its in-depth assistance on the book and upcoming documentary film Eating Animals, which is being produced by Academy Award Winner Natalie Portman. Farm Forward also hosts a petition at ag-gag.org that has been signed by tens of thousands of people nationwide and remains a cornerstone of the movement to overturn ag-gag laws.

Farm Forward is part of a coalition of plaintiffs in this lawsuit that includes the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Animal Legal Defense Fund, Center for Food Safety, Farm Sanctuary, Food & Water Watch, Government Accountability Project, and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. The plaintiffs’ joint statement is as follows:

North Carolina’s Anti-Sunshine Law seriously hinders North Carolinians’ ability to know the truth about misconduct, mistreatment and corruption happening in virtually every industry, including nursing homes, factory farms, financial institutions, daycare centers and more. It’s an extreme law forced on citizens over a governor’s veto by lawmakers who bowed to pressure from corporate lobbyists. This law blatantly violates citizens’ rights to free speech, a free press, and to petition their government, and violates the Equal Protection Clause. It places the safety of our families, our food supply, and animals at risk, and it attempts to bully and threaten those working for transparency, free speech and the public good. Our lawsuit is being brought for the sake of the health and safety of all citizens of North Carolina. We are confident the law will be found unconstitutional and that a victory in North Carolina will deter other state legislatures from repeating North Carolina’s mistake.

Donate now and help us strike down another unconstitutional ag-gag law!

Full Press Release PDF available here

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.

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.

For centuries, the question of what’s “fit” for Jewish communities has guided our daily actions and reflected our religious identities and moral values.

In a fraction of that time, industrial animal agriculture has transformed our food system and made intensive farming the norm for 99% of animals–even for animal products that certifiers label as kosher, or “fit to eat.” Jewish foods–as diverse as the community itself–are meant to help us celebrate holidays, mark important life events, nurture our bodies each day, and exemplify our values. Yet, many of the foods that embody Jewish comfort now come with uncomfortable truths.

A new norm is attainable; all that’s needed is our communal will to learn and take action. As a community, it’s time to reckon with the impacts of our food choices–on farmed animals, on people, and on the planet–and ask: is this way of farming and eating truly kosher?

Is This Kosher explores modern chicken, fish, and dairy farming practices

• October 2, 2020 — Farm Forward publishes a blog, “Why We Resigned from the Board of the Nation’s Largest Animal Welfare Certification,” explaining our April 2020 departure from the board of Global Animal Partnership (GAP), the certification used by Whole Foods Market, after more than a decade of service. In it, we explain that, despite years of effort, the certification had become a marketing tool for factory farming corporations instead of meaningfully raising the bar for animal welfare.
  (Posted to timeline 8/25/22)
• December 30, 2020 — Farm Forward’s report, “ The Dirt on Humanewashing,” reveals how the certified “better” meat dominating grocery shelves, including Whole Foods’ Animal Welfare Certified  meat, come from genetically modified animals who suffer in filthy, cruel conditions.
  (Posted to timeline 8/25/22)
• May, 2021 — Farm Forward receives a positive result from National Organic Program and Global Animal Partnership (GAP) Animal Welfare Certified beef purchased from Whole Foods Market for monensin sodium, a growth-promoting antibiotic ionophore prohibited by both programs.
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• September, 2021 — Farm Forward commissions a survey from YouGov of more than 1,000 U.S. consumers and their beliefs about meat labels. It finds that 25 percent incorrectly believe that “antibiotic-free” means animals are raised on pasture, and 32 percent incorrectly believe that “antibiotic-free” indicates high welfare. Additionally, nearly half of consumers expect GAP’s Animal Welfare Certified label to guarantee that animals are not given antibiotics.
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• February, 2022 — Farm Forward receives eight additional positive results for antiparasitic drugs in cattle and turkey products sold at multiple Whole Foods stores and chicken products from Trader Joe’s. Four GAP-certified beef products purchased from Whole Foods tested positive for fenbendazole; one GAP-certified turkey product from Whole Foods tested positive for clopidol; and two “antibiotic-free” chicken products from Trader Joe’s tested positive for fenbendazole. These antiparasitic drugs are banned by the National Organic Program, but not by GAP. In our testing, these antiparasitic drugs did not appear in Certified Organic products.
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• February, 2022 — Experts consulted to confirm the implications of each of the positive results for the claims made by the retailers and certifications implicated by the findings. Farm Forward shares its findings with a Washington Post reporter investigating antibiotic use in animal agriculture.
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• March 30, 2022 — Farm Forward’s blog, “Whole Foods’ ‘Better’ Chicken Isn’t What You Think,” highlights how GAP’s new genetic welfare standards, framed as “reinvent[ing] the modern day broiler chicken,” still allow genetic modification for fast growth in ways that are known to produce leg deformities, muscle myopathies, and weakened immune systems.
  (Posted to timeline 8/25/22)
• April 5, 2022 — Farm Forward publishes the results of its drug testing program and launches a consumer petition targeting Whole Foods. Emails on behalf of petition signers are sent to Whole Foods on a rolling basis.
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• April 5, 2022 — Farm Forward issues a press release about the results of its drug testing program.
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• April 7, 2022 — Science publishes a peer-reviewed study co-authored by researchers at George Washington University’s Antibiotic Resistance Action Center (ARAC) and an antibiotics testing company, FoodID, revealing that residues of medically important antibiotics are pervasive in animals marketed as “antibiotic-free” and certified by GAP.
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• April 7, 2022 — ARAC publishes a press release on Phys.org. Arizona radio station KJZZ is the first to cover the story.
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• April 7, 2022 — The Washington Post posts an article about the article published in Science, affirming Farm Forward’s findings. Though Farm Forward was interviewed extensively for the story, a decision was made by the paper just before the article’s publication to omit any mention of Farm Forward, including Farm Forward’s test results and its former role on GAP’s Board of Directors. The article included an inaccurate assertion from a Whole Foods representative that Whole Foods had “no reason to believe that the cattle tested in this study ended up in products in [its] stores.” Whole Foods’ leadership was informed that Farm Forward had found antibiotic residue in meat sold on its shelves prior to the story’s release.
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• April 7, 2022 — Farm Forward publishes a blog titled “More drugs found in ‘antibiotic-free’ meat certified by Global Animal Partnership,” discussing the Science study’s findings, which corroborate the results of Farm Forward’s own testing.
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• April 7, 2022 — Farm Forward submits a letter to the editor to the Washington Post including some of the data that was omitted from the article. The LTE is not run.
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• April 8, 2022 — Farm Action was joined by the American Grassfed Association in issuing a press release, calling on the USDA to investigate Whole Foods’ “antibiotic-free” claims in the wake of Farm Forward’s and the Science study’s findings.
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• April 8, 2022 — Articles appear in The Hill, Consumer Reports, and WebMD, calling into question “antibiotic-free” claims based on the Science data but excluding Farm Forward’s findings.
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• April 8, 2022 — Industry outlet AgWeb is the first to cover Farm Action’s request to the USDA along with Farm Forward’s data.
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• April 12, 2022 — Forbes covers the Science study, highlighting that “more than a quarter of the cattle sampled from the Global Animal Partnership welfare certification program, used by Whole Foods and hundreds of other retailers and meat purchasers, had at least one positive test.”
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• April 12, 2022 — Food Safety News writes about the Science study and Farm Forward’s findings, reiterating Whole Foods’ claim that “no retailer is identified by the study,” despite Farm Forward’s results coming from meat purchased at Whole Foods.
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• April 14, 2022 — Farm Forward’s petition reaches 1,000 signatures.
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• April 14, 2022 — Farm Forward publishes a blog titled “The Drugs Farm Forward Found Hiding in Your Meat,” detailing the methodology and implications of its drug testing results.
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• April 14, 2022 — Sentient Media publishes an article on Farm Forward’s data entitled “Antibiotic Residue Found in Antibiotic-Free Meat at Whole Foods.”
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• April 15, 2022 — Farm Forward’s Executive Director, Andrew deCoriolis, sends a letter to supporters and other stakeholders, including Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, about the drug testing results.
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• April 16, 2022 — Farm Forward’s video about the antibiotics found in Whole Foods’ meat was played 50,000 times between Facebook and Twitter.
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• April 20, 2022 — Farm Forward publishes a blog titled “How can “antibiotic-free” meat contain antibiotics? Simple: Nobody’s watching,” highlighting the absence of any testing to verify “antibiotic-free” claims, while companies charge premiums on factory farmed products with these labels.
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• May, 2022 — Farm Forward submits an ad calling Whole Foods’ “no antibiotics, ever” promise into question to Seattle and Austin airport and public transit agencies (hometowns of Whole Foods and its parent, Amazon, respectively) in advance of Amazon’s annual shareholder meeting. Officials (including Seattle’s Sound Transit, which maintains a financial relationship with Amazon) reject the advertisement because of its “controversial” nature.
  (Posted to timeline 7/5/22)
• May 24, 2022 — Farm Forward issues a formal appeal of the agencies’ decisions on First Amendment grounds, explaining that placing the PSA on publicly operated spaces like the Seattle and Austin airports and public transit would provide an important public service.
  (Posted to timeline 7/5/22)
• May 25, 2022 — Farm Forward runs its ad during Amazon’s shareholder meeting on cell phones in Austin and Seattle, as well as in the hometown cities of Amazon’s top 10 shareholders, reaching over 90,000 people, and publishes a blog entitled, “Censored: Ad Exposing Whole Foods’ Antibiotics Deception.”(Posted to timeline 7/5/22)
  
• March 30, 2023 — In collaboration with the Animal Welfare Institute, Farm Forward consults with Senator Blumenthal’s (D-CT) office to encourage them to take action with the USDA to protect consumers from humanewashing, leading to a letter being sent to the USDA by four senators asking to review the integrity of animal welfare claims like “humanely raised” and “sustainably raised” on meat products.
  (Posted to timeline 9/22/23)
• June 14, 2023 — The USDA announces 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 praises this step in the right direction while acknowledging its limitations. (Posted to timeline 9/22/23)
  
• July 2, 2023 — Tyson Foods announces it will reintroduce certain antibiotics to its chicken supply chain and would drop the “no antibiotics ever” tagline from Tyson-branded chicken products. (Posted to timeline 3/21/24)
• July 25, 2023 — A federal judge in California rules that the consumer protection lawsuit alleging Whole Foods Market falsely advertised its beef as “no antibiotics, ever” can proceed. The judge also denied Whole Foods’ motion to stay discovery, which opens the door to Whole Foods turning over key information about their suppliers. (Posted to timeline 9/22/23)
• August 15, 2023 — Farm Forward sends a letter to the Deputy Undersecretary of Food Safety at the USDA, Sandra Eskin, recommending ways in which the USDA can further improve meat labeling and protect consumers from misleading claims and certifications. (Posted to timeline 9/22/23)
• August 25, 2023 — Farm Forward releases the results of a major new consumer survey conducted with Data for Progress. The survey underscores the reality that consumers have high expectations for animal welfare that meat companies and retailers are not yet meeting and that companies risk eroding the trust of their consumers if they continue to humanewash. The Data for Progress report is covered in Politico’s agricultural reporting. (Posted to timeline 9/22/23)
• September 7, 2023 — Agricultural research outlet Ambrook Research publishes a comprehensive article detailing the failures of antibiotic-free labeling. The piece quotes Farm Forward’s Executive Director, Andrew DeCoriolis, throughout. (Posted to timeline 9/22/23)
• Early 2024 — The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) completes its sampling program designed to assess antibiotic residues in cattle marked as “raised without antibiotics. The testing program was initiated after Farm Forward’s joint letter to the USDA was sent last year. (Posted to timeline 3/21/24)
• Late February 2024 —Panera Bread began removing in-store signs and artwork mentioning “No Antibiotics Ever,” among other animal welfare claims, as part of a policy shift ahead of its planned IPO. Loosening their animal welfare standards is estimated to save them $21 million. (Posted to timeline 3/21/24)
• March 25, 2024 — Chick-fil-A abandons its ‘no antibiotics ever’ chicken promise, and will shift to the ‘No Antibiotics Important To Human Medicine’ designation. (Posted to timeline 4/2/2024)
• August 29, 2024 – Farm Forward responds to a USDA testing program that found that at least 20 percent of tested cattle samples labeled “raised without antibiotics” or “no antibiotics ever” tested positive for antibiotics. USDA buries the findings and reports no punitive action. (Posted to timeline 9/10/2024)

To be kept in the loop as more on this story unfolds, please consider subscribing to our newsletter, and supporting our efforts to expose the truth about our food system, and offer actual solutions.

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.

Many American consumers, both Jewish and non-Jewish, purchase kosher animal products because they erroneously believe the label guarantees better animal treatment. According to the results of two national surveys released by Farm Forward, both the general population and Jewish Americans believe a kosher certification means products such as chicken, beef, dairy, eggs, and fish come from animals who were treated better over the course of their lives than non-kosher. Additionally, Jewish Americans are more likely to hold false beliefs about kosher-certified animal products than the general population of Americans.

The data confirms what JIFA has inferred from previous research that shows people think kosher food is inherently better: consumers, both Jewish and non-Jewish, extend this belief to the way farmed animals are bred and raised, despite the fact virtually all kosher and non-kosher meat, poultry, dairy, and eggs come from animal raised on factory farms. This phenomenon is called kosher humanewashing.

The two identical surveys asked people about their purchasing behaviors and understanding of kosher labels on animal products. Below is a summary of the key findings, including comparative findings of the two populations (1,500 adults in the general population and 500 Jewish adults).

Key findings:

• Nearly half of Jewish Americans falsely believe that animals in kosher production are better treated than non-kosher: 48% of Jewish adults nationwide said a kosher label on an animal product such as beef, chicken, fish, dairy products, or eggs means that over the course of an animal’s life, it was better treated than an animal raised for non-kosher products. In reality, nearly all animals used in kosher farming are bred and raised on factory farms.
• In some cases, Jewish consumers are more likely than the general population to believe untruths about kosher certification: In contrast to 48% of Jewish adults, identical research conducted of 1,500 US adults showed 34%, roughly two-thirds as many, said a kosher label meant an animal had been better treated. 53% of Jewish respondents agreed that a kosher label on an animal product guarantees that the animal “did not suffer much in its life,” and in the general population, 39% agreed with the same statement. Similarly, 48% of Jewish adults agreed that a kosher label guarantees an animal “was treated humanely during its life,” compared to 40% of all adults. Kosher certification does not ensure any of these claims.
• Many Americans have faulty notions about what kosher means for specific aspects of farmed animal welfare: For example, many shoppers think a kosher label on an animal product means the animal used was not treated with antibiotics except for therapeutic purposes (41% Jewish pop.; 44% general pop.), had healthy genetics (38% Jewish pop.; 40% general pop.), was not confined for much of its life, and lived its entire life on an outdoor pasture (36% Jewish pop.; 37% general pop). Jewish and general population respondents displayed similar beliefs about these topics, except that considerably fewer Jewish adults (26%) believe a kosher certification means animals lived their entire lives on pasture than the general population (34%). Kosher certification has no relationship to antibiotic use, healthy genetics, confinement, or access to pasture.
• 74% of Americans purchase kosher out of concern for food safety: Of the general population that buys kosher products, the majority of shoppers cite food safety as a key concern (previous research has shown that 34% of Americans believe kosher food is safer). A kosher certification in actuality does nothing to safeguard public health from the effects of common factory farming practices such as overuse of antibiotics. Antibiotics are often used in conventionally raised poultry, beef, and farmed fish to prevent rather than treat illness, and can give rise to antibiotic resistant bacteria. A 2013 study found that kosher chicken had the highest rate of antibiotic resistant E. coli, compared with organic and conventional chicken. Some people’s food safety concerns may pertain to allergens—kosher certification ensures, for example, no cross-contamination with non-kosher allergens such as shellfish, and also ensures no cross-contamination with dairy when a product is labeled Pareve or contains meat such as chicken or beef—while other people may associate a lower risk for food-borne illnesses from consuming kosher products. The health risks associated with the unregulated use of antibiotics and their virus-producing potential in intensively farmed animals is receiving increasing attention, particularly given their role in pandemic outbreaks in humans.
• There may be widespread misconceptions about what a kosher label means beyond animal welfare: In addition to animal welfare and food safety, consumers were asked how often they buy kosher products out of a concern for other values such as environmental protection, workers’ rights, and public health. More than half of all adult shoppers for kosher food are concerned about at least one of these three issues, with 66% saying they buy kosher animal products out of concern for the environment (compared with 58% in Jewish pop.), 65% out of concern for public health (59% Jewish pop.), and 54% out of concern for workers’ rights (48% Jewish pop.). Given shoppers’ high level of concern for practices around labor, environment, and health, it is possible that many Americans are confused or misinformed about what a kosher label guarantees, as a kosher certification does not dictate standards for these areas.

Kosher certifications in and of themselves wield significant humanewashing and healthwashing power among both Jewish and non-Jewish adults, whether or not companies intend to deceive consumers. Just as a high percentage of Americans trust kosher to mean that a product is of superior quality, many Jewish and non-Jewish Americans associate kosher certification with better overall treatment of farmed animals compared to non-kosher. Previous survey work demonstrates the majority of Americans are committed to broad anti-cruelty principles. Kosher-certified animal products, like ones that bear other humanewashing labels and claims, often fall short of consumer expectations such as regular access to outdoor pasture. Significantly, the Jewish community—which is best positioned to influence kosher production and educate consumers about the realities of the industry—is even more likely to hold false beliefs around whether a kosher certification ensures better animal treatment and prevents suffering during an animal’s life.

Over 200 Jewish clergy are already responding to the issue of kosher humanewashing by calling on Jewish institutions to adopt more sustainable and ethical food policies. View the full list of signatories and here.

On November 19th, Bernard Rollin, one of the world’s leading animal ethicists and a fierce advocate for animal welfare, passed away. Bernie has been on Farm Forward’s board of directors since our founding in 2007, and has been a mentor, advisor and inspiration to our founders and team members for decades. His contributions to the fields of veterinary ethics, animal ethics and animal welfare advocacy have been immense and foundational. We remember him for his sense of humor in the face of adversity, his intellectual integrity and pragmatic approach to social change, his generosity in supporting other animal advocates no matter where they were in their careers, and for the compassion at the core of his lifelong commitment to reducing animal suffering. You can learn more about his life and work in his autobiography, Putting the Horse before Descartes: My Life’s Work on Behalf of Animals.

Farm Forward’s team members have shared some reflections on what Bernie meant to us:

“Bernie taught me that even in today’s broken system of industrial farming, there are powerful opportunities to reduce animal suffering–and that these opportunities matter profoundly. Bernie’s presence on our board since our founding in 2007 helped ensure that Farm Forward always combines our strategies for longterm transformation of animal agriculture with incremental steps to reduce suffering. As Bernie would say, to do anything less is to forget what it is like to suffer.”

– Aaron Gross, Founder and CEO of Farm Forward

“Bernie has had a profound impact on my life that I can’t adequately put into words. I will dearly miss our conversations, and am grateful to have worked with him during my graduate studies at Colorado State University. Though he was one of the busiest people that I knew, he always made time to check in (often with a phone call), and highly prioritized his student mentorship. Bernie’s tireless and pioneering work on behalf of animals inspired my own dedication to advocacy and scholarship, and his blending of powerful storytelling with compelling empirical and philosophical arguments set a tremendous example for my own and many others’ efforts in animal ethics.”

– Joseph Tuminello, Program Manager Farm Forward, Asst. Prof. of Philosophy at McNeese State University

“I first met Bernie in 2004. He’s one of a kind. He’s this huge prominent academic who worked really closely with Temple Grandin for much of his career, yet he’d encourage you to call him on his cellphone. He was a fun person to know. He always told you exactly what he thought, and I always looked forward to talking to him. I reached out to him many many times.”

– Ben Goldsmith, Founding Executive Director and Senior Strategist of Farm Forward

“Bernie gave me a huge amount of guidance during my first few years with Farm Forward. He not only helped me accomplish projects I was working on, like building our Buyingpoultry site, but he also helped me develop my own moral intuition about complex issues. Bernie turned his attention as a philosopher to moral issues that most people ignore and in his advocacy work he pushed industry and policy makers to attend to the lives and deaths of non human animals. I will miss his guidance and humor.”

– Andrew deCoriolis, Executive Director of Farm Forward

“Bernie, you were a mensch.  Despite your sometimes gruff demeanor you were a gentle soul with a heart of gold. It is rare to find someone who would talk and act compassionately, passionately, and thoughtfully about animal suffering. You will be missed.”

– Steve Gross, former Board Chair of Farm Forward

To hear more stories about the legend of Bernie Rollin, check out this blog we published twelve years ago on the occasion of the publication of his autobiography!

In a victory for Farm Forward and its allies, on June 28, 2021 the U.S. District Court ruled that Farm Forward and a coalition of animal and environmental protection organizations have standing to sue in two lawsuits against the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), regarding regulations at pig slaughterhouses.

In a suit filed in December 2019, the Animal Law Litigation Clinic challenged USDA’s reducing oversight at pig slaughterhouses and eliminating limits on slaughter speeds, each of which expose pigs to greater suffering. The second lawsuit, filed in February 2020 by Farm Forward and other plaintiffs, sued Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue and the USDA for failing to protect pigs who are too sick or injured to walk at slaughterhouses, posing serious risks to animals and food safety.

Every year, well over half a million pigs arrive at U.S. slaughterhouses too sick or injured to stand or walk. These “downed” pigs have a higher risk of carrying a host of human-transmissible pathogens, including Listeria, Campylobacter, Salmonella, swine flu, and Yersinia. Downed pigs are also more likely to face inhumane handling, including excessive electro-shocking, prodding, kicking, shoving, and dragging by workers attempting to force them to move.

These won’t be easy lawsuits to win, but we will continue to fight for a more just food system until no animals suffer on factory farms. We can’t do this work without you.

Please consider becoming a monthly supporter today to help ensure our ongoing work to build a world free from factory farms. We need you now more than ever.

Connecting the dots

In 2021, The University of Oxford’s Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics launched a Thinking Out Loud series on ‘Animals and Pandemics’ led by Dr. Katrien Devolder. She interviewed Farm Forward founder and CEO Dr. Aaron Gross about why factory farms are breeding grounds for pandemics, and what we, as individuals, can do to reduce the risk of new pandemics arising.

Dr. Devolder first learned of Farm Forward in an op-ed for The Guardian titled “We Have to Wake Up: Factory Farms are Breeding Grounds for Pandemics,” which connected the dots between factory farming and pandemic risk. Written by Dr. Gross and a Farm Forward board member, best-selling author Jonathan Safran Foer, the op-ed notes the staggering pandemic virus threat posed by industrial pig and chicken farms and calls for societal change:

“The link between factory farming and increasing pandemic risk is well established scientifically, but the political will to curtail that risk has, in the past, been absent. Now is the time to build that will. It really does matter if we talk about this, share our concerns with our friends, explain these issues to our children, wonder together about how we should eat differently, call on our political leaders, and support advocacy organisations fighting factory farming. Leaders are listening. Changing the most powerful industrial complex in the world – the factory farm – could not possibly be easy, but in this moment with these stakes it is, maybe for the first time in our lifetimes, possible.

The facts

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), at least three out of every four new or emerging infectious diseases come from animals. With an estimated mortality rate of around two percent, COVID-19 is wreaking havoc worldwide. But it could have been much worse. Had COVID been another virus on the CDC watch list, like H5N1 (bird flu), we could be facing a pathogen with a 60 percent mortality rate. And of the 19 viruses currently dominating the CDC’s list of influenza viruses with pandemic potential considered “of special concern,” at least 11 emerged in commercial poultry farms.

While COVID-19 may have emerged from a wet market, the greater pandemic risk is our insatiable appetite for cheap, factory farmed meat. The meat that we eat today is overwhelmingly from genetically uniform, immunocompromised, regularly drugged animals lodged by the tens of thousands into buildings or stacked cages – no matter how the meat is labelled.

A new way forward

The world is a different place since the emergence of COVID-19 – we are waking up to the huge costs and disruptions caused by a pandemic and we are more ready to act now to protect our future. Some political leaders have rightly called for a moratorium on new factory farms while others are seeking additional protections for workers in slaughterhouses and meat packing plants. In this moment we can re-envision a future without industrial agriculture – in which alternatives abound and animals are raised with dignity.

Your support can make a different future possible. Consider a recurring gift today to help Farm Forward ensure a better world.

Last month, Farm Forward, as a member of the Stand Up to Factory Farms coalition, submitted testimony to the Oregon Senate committee on Natural Resources and Wildlife Recovery urging the committee not to pass Senate Bill 151: The Bovine Manure Tax Credit.

In the testimony, the coalition educated the Senate about how the bill “incentivizes and props up unsustainable mega-dairies in Oregon”, “to the disadvantage of family farm dairies”, “and the detriment of rural communities and the environment”, among other vital pieces of the bill’s impact that the Oregon Senate is sworn to protect its people against.

Our testimony also warned about the misleading solution that biogas presents, which seems to be underwhelmingly understood by those who are blindly relying on its perceived benefits:

 “Mega-dairy digesters are touted for their purported climate benefits from methane capture. But in reality, methane digesters are a false solution to climate change and have no place in Oregon’s clean energy future. Digesters at best capture only the additional methane created by the adoption of factory farm practices in the first place.”
― Farm Forward

The Senate Natural Resources and Wildlife Recovery committee has not yet voted on the bill.

To support our work fighting on the right side of history, please consider making a donation to the legislative policy program of Farm Forward. 

This week, thanks to groundbreaking legislation introduced by Oregon Representative Rob Nosse and Senator Michael Dembrow, a much-needed moratorium on new and expanding industrial dairies above 2,500 cows has a chance to see the light of day.

As members of the Stand Up to Factory Farms coalition, Farm Forward supports the moratorium which would allow a pause in the permitting of new and expanding mega-dairies until meaningful protections can be enacted to protect Oregon’s air, water, climate, rural communities, small farmers and animal welfare.

“The growth of mega-dairies in Oregon is directly responsible for destroying small dairy farms, polluting our rivers, water, and land, and are a major contributor to the worsening climate crisis,” says Erin Eberle, Director of Engagement at Farm Forward. “It’s past time for Oregon to put our people, farmed animals, and planet before profits. We need a mega-dairy moratorium this session.”

“This legislation could not come at a more critical time for Oregon’s climate,” says Emma Newton, Oregon Organizer with Food & Water Watch and the Stand Up to Factory Farms coalition. “Representative Nosse and Senator Dembrow lead the charge as Oregonians fight back against dangerous industrial dairy facilities.”

“Mega-dairy pollution doesn’t impact all Oregonians equally. Our rural communities- particularly Latinx and indigenous communities- have long lived with polluted air and unsafe drinking water,” says Ana Elisa Wilson, Community Organizer at Oregon Rural Action. “A mega-dairy moratorium would protect Oregon’s rural communities from further harm.”

“Mega-dairies use as much water as a city the size of Bend,” says Brian Posewitz, staff attorney at WaterWatch of Oregon. “Our streams, rivers and groundwater aquifers are too strained to handle that extra load. We appreciate Representative Nosse and Senator Dembrow introducing these bills.”

“Since 2000, Oregon’s small and pastured dairy farmers have struggled to compete with mega-dairies flooding the milk market and driving down prices,” says Amy Wong, Policy Director at Friends of Family Farmers. “A mega-dairy moratorium is the break our small farmers need to stay in business and build a resilient local food system.”

Mega-dairies cause air pollution, contribute to climate change, extract large amounts of water from Oregon’s rivers, streams, and aquifers, contaminate drinking water, harm the welfare of animals, and push family-scale farms out of business. Advocates warn that the increase in mega-dairies is a crisis for Oregon’s communities and natural resources that can only be solved by a “time-out” on the construction and expansion of these facilities. Oregon is poised to be the next hot spot for mega-dairies unless the legislature takes immediate action.

“Because of lax state regulation, frontline communities pay for mega-dairy air and water pollution with their health. But Oregonians deserve a food system that is resilient, healthy, and fair for everyone. That’s why we need a time out to ensure a just system that does not sacrifice people in the pursuit of profits,” says Amy van Saun, Senior Attorney with the Center for Food Safety.

“It is past time to protect our natural resources from the overuse and pollution of mega-dairies. A mega-dairy moratorium ensures Oregon’s water supply, including treasured waterways like the Columbia River, will be safe from waste runoff”, says Lauren Goldberg, Legal and Program Director at Columbia Riverkeeper. “Mega-dairies operate with little regard for the well-being of the thousands of cows forced inside their concrete walls or surrounding communities,” says Animal Legal Defense Fund Executive Director Stephen Wells.“Oregon urgently needs better legal safeguards put in place to protect animals and residents from the threats posed by mega-dairies.”

Consider becoming a sustaining supporter of Farm Forward to help ensure we can continue this important work.

Image Credit: We Animals Media

“All that you touch, You Change. All that you Change, Changes You. The only lasting truth is Change.”

– Octavia Butler

Hello again from 2050. We want you to know that your efforts in 2020 to create a more just food system won’t be for nothing. We’re living in a better world that you helped create. Thanks to your support a new vision for agriculture and food systems became a reality.  

The introduction of the Farm System Reform Act (FSRA) in 2019 was a turning point. Enacted in 2024, the FSRA immediately stopped the construction or expansion of large factory farms, and required that existing factory farms be phased out by 2040. After farmers received training and the FSRA’s billions of dollars of debt forgiveness, they eagerly left factory farming in favor of the highest welfare forms of agriculture, including indigenous-informed methods like agroforestry and silvopasture. Lands formerly used for factory farms and to grow food for farmed animals now support diverse, resilient and regenerative farms. The Regenerative Organic Certified program launched in 2020 set the standard for what climate-friendly and more humane forms of animal agriculture could be.   

You are part of this story. These changes happened because millions of Americans decided it was time for a change. Rural communities that were impacted by CAFOs and rose up to protect themselves, young people who worked to mitigate climate change, citizens who were concerned for animal welfare, and farmers who were tired of being beholden to monopolistic food companies all took action. 

Our thriving, resilient food system honors the lives of human and non-human animals, and recognizes the interdependence of all living beings and the planet. A reminder: In 2020, the future is not yet written. Please consider becoming a sustaining supporter of Farm Forward’s work. 

Future generations thank you.  

With gratitude,  

Farm Forward 

We write to you from the year 2050 to let you know that humanity is thriving on a rejuvenated planet. Looking back, 2020 was a turning point. Colliding crises—runaway climate change, a global pandemic, and extreme inequality—motivated a mass movement of people to demand change.  

In the years that followed, a diverse coalition of farmers, activists, communities, and consumers built the political will to end factory farming. That work went hand-in-hand with confronting racism and systemic oppression to build a just society and an economy that promotes equity. Over decades, we mitigated the climate crisis, greatly reduced the risk of another global pandemic, and rebuilt an American food system that works for everyone. 

Your support of Farm Forward made this all possible.

What does that food system look like from the vantage point of 2050? Monolithic factory farms have been replaced by a mosaic of family farms producing grains, legumes, fruits and vegetables, mostly for domestic consumption. American diets have shifted plants to the center of the plate. Today, the few animals that are raised for food have healthy genetics and are raised on pasture.  

As a result, rivers and streams run clean of pesticides, fertilizer, and toxic animal waste. Soils are rich and healthy and are a key part of climate mitigation. Workers across the food chain have safe, dignified jobs that allow them to thrive.  

You might wonder how we did all this in just 30 years. We worked together. People like you, people dedicated to this vision of a better future, pitched in to build it.  

Historians say that 2020 was a critical turning point. Crisis created opportunity. That hard year laid the foundation for the progress that followed—none of this progress would have been possible without people deciding, in 2020, to generously invest in the causes they cared about. That year, your support of Farm Forward helped make progress possible. 

In 2020, Farm Forward: 

• Launched a campaign about factory farming and pandemics that reached millions of people and helped pave the way for the political changes to come;  
• Supported frontline food workers and demanded that meat companies protect their workers—most of whom are people of color and immigrants—from the rampant spread of COVID-19 in slaughterhouses; 
• Pushed to repeal ag-gag legislation in multiple states, and won in North Carolina (resulting in the court deeming ag-gag laws unconstitutional in one of the largest animal ag states in the country);  
• Advocated for an anti-racist animal protection movement; and  
• Lobbied for a new vision for American agriculture, which begins with phasing out CAFO’s and a transition to more just, sustainable, and humane forms of agriculture.  

All of these efforts were integral to what we now experience as a resilient new normal in 2050, and they wouldn’t have occurred without you.  

Your support in 2020 made a different future possible. Consider a recurring gift today and help Farm Forward ensure a better world.