Compassion in World Farming launches new strategy urging society to join global movement to end factory farming

Compassion in World Farming is calling on citizens, NGOs and forward-thinking businesses to join a new global movement calling for far-reaching food and farming reforms as part of a bold new three-year strategy.

Creating a Compassionate Future – which starts in April – is its most urgent strategy yet and reflects the growing need for action in the face of the escalating climate, hunger and wildlife crises. It makes clear that factory farming is not only the biggest cause of cruelty on the planet, it’s driving all three crises and, without action within this next decisive decade, it will be too late.

The international animal welfare environmental charity has launched a new online platform to harness support from individuals, organisations, and forward-thinking businesses calling on world leaders to urgently transform our food system.

The aim is to build a powerful voice across a broad range of sectors – including health, social justice, environment, food business, conservation, and animal welfare – that world leaders cannot ignore.

Animal welfare will remain at the heart of the organisation’s work – focusing on securing better lives for animals farmed now, and influencing those who make or fund policy to embrace a future centred on high welfare, climate- and nature-positive farming.

Founded in 1967 by a British dairy farmer who became horrified at the development of intensive factory farming, today, Compassion is now an influential global campaigning NGO with headquarters in the UK, and around 180 staff in teams across Europe, in the US, China and South Africa.

Its ground-breaking investigations and campaigns expose the true cost of factory farming and hold to account those with the power to change our food system. Its work with thousands of food businesses achieves game-changing welfare and sustainability commitments giving billions of animals lives worth living.

Philip Lymbery, Compassion in World Farming’s Global CEO, said: “In the face of the growing climate, health and wildlife emergencies made worse by factory farming, it’s no longer a case of can we afford to embrace animal welfare but that we can no longer afford not to.

“As the recent Intergovernmental Report on Climate Change (IPCC) warned, unless we see transformative action during this decisive next decade it will be too late. Our new strategy therefore reflects this urgency with ambitious aims to address one of the root causes of all three crises as well as the cause of so much misery and cruelty – factory farming.”

“We are urging all sectors – from NGOs and public bodies to businesses and individuals – to help us sound the alarm bells, gather support from every faction of society, and make the big changes needed before it’s too late. We must unite to turn this impending catastrophe into a future where farming is high welfare, climate and nature positive and works for animals, people and our planet.”

The new strategy is broken down into three overarching goals which build on the significant successes Compassion has achieved in recent years, including an historic commitment from the European Union to ban cages for farmed animals by 2027.

These goals are:

• to achieve a global shift from factory farming to regenerative farming that works with nature and animals;
• to reduce human reliance on animal products, including by eating less meat, fish, and dairy; and
• to raise a global awareness that good animal welfare is essential for sustainable climate and nature-friendly food.

To achieve these goals, Compassion will focus on the four main actors that hold the key to achieving the goals – governments, corporates, the United Nations and the finance sector.

It will continue to run powerful global campaigns and engage with global and national bodies that have the power to drive change, including the UN, the EU, and governments around the world.

Engagement with leading and forward-thinking food businesses will continue to help achieve these goals by demanding higher animal welfare and planet-friendly practices in food production.

Another important focus will be influencing financial institutions to shift investments away from factory farming towards nature-friendly and animal-positive farming, as well as the production of alternative proteins like grains, pulses, and cultivated meat.

For further information about Compassion, visit our website.

For more information please email media.team@ciwf.org or call 01483 521 615

Notes to Editors

1. Read the latest IPCC report.