A new research report commissioned by World Animal Protection, titled, Climate Change and Cruelty, has revealed the true impact of factory farming on our planet, finding that ongoing expansion of factory farming will put achievement of the Paris Climate Agreement goals and a climate-safe future out of reach.
Every year, more than 80 billion land animals are farmed globally, most on cruel factory farms. This research analyzed the carbon footprint of factory farming chickens and pigs in four of the world’s biggest factory-farming hot spots, Brazil, China, The Netherlands, and the United States. The data determined that the emissions from producing current numbers of chickens are equivalent to keeping 29 million cars on the road for a year and emissions from producing pigs are equal to 74 million cars.
The pig and chicken industries are often overlooked as contributors to climate change, with significant focus on methane emissions from raising cows. These findings offer new insight into the true footprint of factory-farming. Growing, processing, and transporting the crops used for feed in factory farms accounts for about 40% to 60% of the overall emissions for chickens and pigs respectively.
The study is the first of its kind to measure how collectively eating less factory-farmed chicken and pork could help safeguard our climate. In the U.S., a 50% reduction in consumption of chicken and pork by 2040 would result in the equivalent of taking eight million cars off the road for a year.
“Urgent action by the U.S. Government and companies to address climate change is imperative, and these new findings shed light on a sector that is all too commonly ignored in climate action plans; the factory farming of pigs and chickens,” Annette Manusevich, Farming Campaign Manager with World Animal Protection U.S., said in a statement. “The results are clear, eating less chicken and pork from factory farms has significant benefit, not just for protecting animals from cruelty, but for protecting our planet’s future as well.”
World Animal Protection is among those calling on the U.S. Government to stop approving new factory farms by imposing a moratorium for a 10-year period in order to curb the damages they are inflicting.
As previously reported by WAN, a bill currently being considered in Congress, the Farm Systems Reform Act (FSRA), would require that the largest factory farms be phased out by 2040.
