Impact on people

As well as causing misery and suffering to an estimated 80 billion farm animals every year, factory farming has a significant negative impact on people all around the world.

The intensive production of meat can be linked to many human health crises including antimicrobial resistance, pandemics, increasing rates of obesity and cancers, as well as malnutrition. The risk of serious foodborne illnesses, such as salmonella and E.Coli, is also higher in intensive farming systems.

Worldwide, more than 820 million people do not have enough to eat, yet almost two billion people are overweight or obese and a third of all food produced is wasted. Meanwhile, feeding human-edible cereals to factory farmed animals means that 100 calories of cereals fed to animals produces just 17-30 calories of meat. If these were fed directly to people, we could feed an extra 3.5 billion people every year.

Livelihoods, particularly those of small-scale farmers, are at risk through land degradation and pollution as well as overfishing and poor or unfair working conditions. As farms become industrialised, larger, and more mechanised, fewer workers are needed.

The future of humanity is at stake - we simply cannot allow factory farming to continue ruining the health, well-being, food security, and livelihoods of people across the globe.