Three years into the outbreak and amidst outrageous increases in egg prices, the United States Department of Agriculture continues to make dangerous payouts to big companies and delay corrective action.

Rate of destruction among egg-laying hens appears to be increasing

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

Farm Forward released a new report today detailing how the federal government’s multi-billion dollar payments to meat, egg, and dairy companies encourage the spread of bird flu, despite the growing risk of the virus mutating into a deadly human pandemic. Over $2 billion in taxpayer-funded payments have gone mainly to large, industrial meat and egg companies like Jennie-O, Cal-Maine, and Tyson, to mass kill birds that have been exposed to bird flu.

Titled “Are We Subsidizing the Next Pandemic?,” Farm Forward’s report finds:

• USDA compensation payments to poultry farms with infected birds actually increase human pandemic risk.
• USDA compensates repeat offenders.
• Current audits of bird flu safety measures are meaningless.
• Huge loopholes in bird flu safety requirements allow many farms to take no measures at all.
• Information blackout from the new administration leaves public health officials in the dark.
• Vaccine requirements lag far behind many other countries.

Nearly a year ago, it was reported that the USDA had paid out nearly $1 billion in what the industry calls “indemnity payments,” which are meant to encourage meat and egg companies to report cases of bird flu by compensating them for the value of the birds they kill off. Companies like Cal-Maine (the largest egg producer in the U.S.) are getting these bailouts even though they have seen record profits, attributed in part to skyrocketing prices for eggs.

In February, the Trump administration announced plans to spend another $900 million dollars in Big Ag bailouts. This brings the total taxpayer funded bailouts for the meat and egg industry to well over $2 billion since the beginning of the outbreak in February 2022. Approximately $400 million of the new funding would go to egg and meat companies to both indemnify losses and buy new flocks of birds to replace those killed (a “double payment” since these farmers were already paid by taxpayers for the value of the birds killed). Another $500 million would pay companies to increase so-called biosecurity measures—measures that have so far proven ineffective at containing the virus and which taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay for.

As noted in the report, the only measure that has proven effective in other countries is vaccine mandates, which the USDA has refused to issue because of industry pressure. Farm Forward’s report documents how the USDA has admitted its own failings in oversight of biosecurity measures, with no meaningful audit system in place to ensure compliance. Despite this and the worsening of the pandemic, USDA response to the outbreak is likely to get weaker due to recent mass layoffs of regulators at the USDA and HHS, including dozens of federal employees who have provided critical testing and tracking information.

Additional Farm Forward research reveals the extent to which the bird flu outbreak has decimated the U.S. population of egg-laying hens, and the apparent acceleration in the rate of that destruction. According to a new analysis by Farm Forward consultant Dr. Gail Hansen, an expert veterinary epidemiologist, the current bird flu outbreak led to the death or intentional killing of at least 13 percent of the entire US egg-laying hen population in 2024. The rate of cullings appears to be increasing: approximately 39 percent of laying hens killed since the beginning of the outbreak have occurred in just the last few months, likely due to the emergence of a new strain of bird flu, D1.1. Following the spread of the D1.1 genotype and the resulting sharp spike in the killing of laying hens, egg prices increased rapidly through the fall of 2024, reaching an all-time high of an average $4.95 per dozen in January 2025. The D1.1 strain—now the predominant genotype in North American flyways—is also more dangerous to humans, having caused a Canadian teen infected after no known animal contact to become critically ill, the hospitalization of a patient in Wyoming, and the death of a Louisiana man—the first human death in the US from this bird flu outbreak.

“When you look at this data, it is 100% clear that the government’s response is not working, and is almost certainly part of why the pandemic is getting worse every day.” Andrew deCoriolis, Executive Director of Farm Forward said. “It’s insane for us to give away $900 million in new taxpayer handouts to meat and egg companies, on top of the $1.4 billion they’ve gotten already, without demanding changes to the very practices that put us at risk.”

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

Farm Forward is proud to announce the launch of a new nonprofit, the Center for Jewish Food Ethics (CJFE)—the culmination of our eight years of incubation and support for farmed animal advocacy in the Jewish community.

In 2016, Farm Forward launched our in-house program, the Jewish Initiative for Animals (JIFA) as the centerpiece of our religious outreach. Every day since, JIFA has advanced its first-of-its-kind mission to help Jewish communities align their food choices with their Jewish values. 

JIFA supported Jewish communities connecting animal welfare, food, farming, and advocacy with Jewish identity, values, and rituals. It started off with a bang in 2016, by training educators, reviving non-factory-farmed kosher heritage chicken for the first time in decades, and designing the animal welfare audit of the Hazon Seal of Sustainability, a LEED-style certification with animal welfare provisions that were adopted by institutions serving 17,000 individuals and an additional 2,000 families.

With Farm Forward’s help, JIFA continued to accomplish great things over the next eight years, including:

• Leading training programs for Hillel International—representing over 500 Jewish community campus centers globally—on serving plant-based food by default.
• Providing programming for 100+ Jewish camps, synagogues, youth groups, community centers, schools, college programs, affinity groups and conferences to spark inquiry into how Jewish values can influence how we treat animals. 
• Developing educational materials such as the Jewish Animal Ethics Community Study Guide, The Ark Project Service-Learning Workbook, and many Jewish holiday resources. 
• Supporting the first American Jewish organizations, including synagogues, in committing to serve plant-based foods by default at all of their events. 
• Co-organizing yearly interfaith webinars, the most recent drawing more than 400 participants from five countries. 
• Presenting on animal welfare and Jewish food justice to countless conferences, and shifting several of those conferences to serve higher welfare animal products and more plant-based foods.
• Providing educational resources used by 1,500+ educators and students, and delivering educational presentations to 5,000+ people.
• Placing content in leading Jewish publications including The Forward, Jewish Journal, JWeekly, Tablet, and Times of Israel, as well as major media outlets like Religion News Service and The Washington Post, on why kosher shouldn’t be factory farmed, reimagining our food practices, pandemic risk, and sustainable food choices. 
• Launching the Jewish Leadership Circle, supporting and recognizing Jewish institutions (including Yale University’s Hillel) shifting to higher welfare animal products and reducing animal consumption.
• Inspiring more than 250 rabbis and senior Jewish leaders and 20,000 individuals to call out kosher humanewashing of factory farmed animal products and urging institutions to adopt more sustainable food practices.
• Commissioning novel research on consumers’ perceptions of kosher certification, and unearthing new American misconceptions about what a kosher label means for animals, workers, and the planet.
• Posting 11 billboards, and social media reaching hundreds of thousands, directing viewers to JIFA’s “Is this Kosher?” website. 
• Influencing the Rabbinical Assembly to pass a resolution stating that “shifts to our institutional food practices, such as reducing factory-farmed animal product consumption, would help us to better achieve our values.”

The aforementioned resolution tasked the Rabbinical Assembly’s Social Justice Commission with creating a subcommittee that would “revisit [the RA’s] work in the area of ethical food consumption.” This led directly to forming JIFA’s Partnership for Sustainable Dining with the Rabbinical Assembly (RA), which has yielded the first-ever Jewish denominational cohort to establish plant-forward food policies and continues under the direction of CJFE. Not only have the cohort members immediately slashed their buying and serving of meat and dairy, but their commitment to upholding this practice as an expression of their religious moral values has wide-reaching cultural significance. Normalizing plant-based foods as the default among Jewish communities, while intensive work, shows that plant-based eating is, in fact, a resonant way for them to put Jewish values of compassion, justice, and repair into action.

JIFA’s stellar run over the past eight years validates Farm Forward’s commitment to movement building, and our approach to community-centered advocacy. Our theory of change assumes that advocates can be highly influential when they focus their advocacy within their own community, and ground their objectives in the unique cultural, political, economic, and overlapping social justice concerns specific to that community. This strategy is quite distinct from campaigns run by national organizations in which mainstream advocates target particular demographics with the aim of mobilizing that demographic to support the agenda of the larger movement. 

The value of JIFA’s authentically embedded, community-focused advocacy has been recognized as so significant that JIFA and its longstanding partner in this work, Jewish Veg, can now come together to create a new nonprofit to steward this work indefinitely. The new CJFE will continue to transform dining practices, and establish more sustainable and humane food sourcing, as the norm in Jewish spaces. 

Formerly the Director of JIFA, CJFE Executive Director Rabbi Melissa Hoffman writes, “Over the eight years Farm Forward incubated JIFA as one of its programs, culminating as JIFA’s partner and fiscal sponsor in this launch, our close work with Farm Forward made a deep impact both practically and philosophically on JIFA & CJFE. Practically, CJFE would not exist if not for the support and guidance JIFA received from Farm Forward. Philosophically, we continue to be proud to serve as a vehicle to bring Farm Forward’s values and experience transforming the food system to Jewish institutions, as a model for change for other religious communities.”

CJFE will carry on JIFA’s legacy of sparking inquiry into topics of food justice through the lens of long and evolving Jewish traditions and values, while strengthening communities in the process. We celebrate that CJFE’s three inaugural staff members are all former staff of JIFA (under the incubation of Farm Forward), that two of its Board members, Lisa Apfelberg and Ilana Braverman, are similarly former JIFA staff, and that a third Board member, Dr. Aaron Gross, is Farm Forward’s founder and CEO. 

This is not the first time that Farm Forward has spun off a new nonprofit organization. If the wild success of Better Food Foundation and Greener by Default are any guide, CJFE will be a force to reckon with in the years to come.

To learn more about CJFE and stay apprised of their work, head over to their website (check out that logo!) and add your info to the “Stay in the Know” form at the bottom of any page.

Three U.S. Senators, working closely with Farm Forward, have urged the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) to strengthen its guidelines on animal welfare and environmental labeling claims, citing widespread deception in food marketing that harms both consumers and independent farmers.

In a letter addressed to USDA Deputy Under Secretary Sandra Eskin, Senators Richard Blumenthal, Cory A. Booker, and Sheldon Whitehouse outlined serious concerns about the current guidelines. The letter notes that the guideline “falls short of what is needed to protect producers and consumers from the unfair misuse of animal welfare and animal-raising claims.” 

Farm Forward, which helped draft the letter, strongly supports these Senators’ efforts to reform labeling practices, and has additionally called for mandatory testing requirements for “antibiotic free” claims.

The Senators emphasized that 78 percent of consumers pay premium prices for products with higher welfare claims, while 85 percent believe the government should establish and enforce clear definitions for animal welfare labels. However, the current guidelines allow major agricultural corporations to exploit these labels without meaningful verification.

The letter quotes an Indiana turkey farmer’s statement to the New York Times of how higher welfare producers like him are disadvantaged by the prevalence of mega-corporations’ misleading labels: “Big Ag has co-opted and bastardized every one of our messages … When they use a fancy label with absolutely meaningless adjectives, there’s just no way we can compete.” Humanewashing labels undermine independent farmers who invest in implementing the actual animal-raising practices they advertise.

The Senators proposed three key recommendations, which Farm Forward endorses:

1. Mandatory third-party certifications for animal welfare claims like “humane” and “humanely raised”
2. Stronger definitions for terms such as “free-range,” “grassfed,” and “pasture-raised”
3. Prohibition of inherently misleading negative claims, such as “hormone-free” labels on poultry products where hormone use is already illegal

In addition, Farm Forward calls for mandatory testing of products labeled as “antibiotic free.” Currently, these labels often rely solely on producers’ unverified claims, which at times blatantly mislead consumers about antibiotic use in meat production. Perdue, which touts their leadership on antibiotic stewardship, vocally opposes both mandatory on-farm testing by the USDA and sensitive testing at slaughterhouses, raising serious questions about their commitment and transparency.

“At a time when our nation is losing independent farms at an alarming rate, we cannot allow mislabeled products to continue tipping the scales in favor of further consolidation,” the Senators wrote, emphasizing that major agricultural corporations cannot be trusted to self-regulate.

With Farm Forward, these senators find self-evident the importance of protecting the integrity of food labelling, ensuring fair competition in the agricultural sector, and providing consumers with accurate information about their food choices.

To supplement the Senators’ letter, Farm Forward—along with Consumer Reports, ASPCA, Compassion in World Farming, Food Animal Concerns Trust (FACT), and George Washington School of Public Health Milken Institute’s Antibiotic Resistance Action Center—wrote a letter to USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) calling for the following actions, among others:

• FSIS should prohibit use of negative antibiotic use claims on products from animals that test positive for antibiotics
• FSIS should require regular testing for all negative antibiotic use claims, not only for new applications but also for companies already approved for these claims and selling in the marketplace
• FSIS should require producers whose product tests positive for antibiotics to demonstrate how they have adequately addressed the root causes of the problem before they are allowed to resume making the claim
• USDA should conduct and report publicly on its own testing for antibiotics on all food-animal species for all products labeled with negative antibiotic use claims
• Following a public comment period and participation from all relevant stakeholders, FSIS should codify minimum standards for all animal-raising claims, rather than continuing to employ incredibly vague definitions that allow a huge spectrum of systems to use the same raising claims, failing consumers and producers alike
• FSIS should require (not simply recommend) ongoing third-party verification to substantiate label claims concerning antibiotic, environmental/carbon, and animal welfare claims
• FSIS should provide financial and technical assistance to small producers to help them access meaningful third-party certification
• FSIS should set clear definitions of environmental-related claims such as “regeneratively raised”, “raised using regenerative agriculture practices”, “sustainably raised”, “carbon neutral”, “low-carbon” and “environmentally responsible”
• FSIS should prohibit the recently approved “Low-Carbon Beef” claim as inherently misleading, since conventional beef production emits more greenhouse gasses than any other food product

Farm Forward will continue to work alongside legislators and other stakeholders to advocate for essential reforms in food labeling practices. Label integrity for environmental, animal raising, and antibiotics claims will help not only the environment, animal welfare, and public health, but also consumers and independent farmers. Having labels that mean what the public believes they mean will be win-win for everyone—at least, everyone who’s not trying to scam the system. We’ve seen recent progress, with the USDA recommending voluntary verification for some label claims. It’s time for USDA to turn those recommendations into requirements.

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.

A USDA testing program finds that at least 20 percent of tested cattle samples labeled “raised without antibiotics” or “no antibiotics ever” tested positive for antibiotics. USDA buries findings and reports no punitive action.

Last year, the United States Department of Agriculture launched a sampling project, to test food products labeled with USDA-approved voluntary marketing claims like “raised without antibiotics,” “no antibiotics ever.” The results are in, and the USDA has found antibiotics in at least 20 percent of cattle tested for drugs. Unfortunately, even after confirming that many cattle products are fraudulently labeled antibiotic-free, the USDA will not require meat companies to test and prove the accuracy of their claims. The USDA’s negligence allows large meat companies to profit off of consumers who pay a premium for a product they believe is healthier and more humane, all based on a lie. The USDA’s inaction will hurt farmers and ranchers who raise animals in more humane ways, without the routine use of antibiotics, and who can’t compete against meat companies who cheat.

While the USDA’s disappointing announcement is consistent with its long history of prioritizing big ag over the public, allowing this level of deception to persist in beef without even requiring testing surprised even us. Anything short of requiring testing is good for companies that are cheating and provides yet another example of the USDA’s toothless responses to factory farms’ failures to adhere to common sense standards.

“Increasingly, consumers are looking for products that align with their values, but it’s clear the meat industry is unable or unwilling to meet consumer expectations. Meat companies want to skate by on flimsy marketing claims like ‘sustainable,’ ‘humane,’ and ‘antibiotic free,’ without actually doing the work to ensure a product that meets those standards,” said Farm Forward Executive Director Andrew deCoriolis. “Humanewashing this flagrant usually is the domain of industry, but here the USDA is trying to sell us news that the US beef supply is compromised — and a meaningful percentage actually contaminated — as good news, and even evidence of their trustworthiness. Meanwhile, the USDA won’t even disclose which companies’ products tested positive for antibiotics in their study, so the public remains in the dark and doesn’t know who to trust. With no regulatory action in place to stop this harmful trend, the USDA has basically greenlit meat companies deceptively marketing products and continuing to lie to us.”

“Companies advertising RWA or antibiotic-free labels should implement transparent testing procedures with data made easily accessible to consumers. And the USDA must provide regulations for all findings. The government can’t pass that task off to the private sector because these findings reiterate that industries won’t voluntarily check themselves. It’s up to the USDA to decide that meat companies can’t jeopardize public health to turn a profit.”

Dr. Aaron Gross, founder of Farm Forward and Director of the University of San Diego Center for Food Systems Transformation, added, “Remembering that the USDA has an impossible dual mandate — to both protect consumers and promote Big Ag — helps explain its cowed response to massive deception in the beef industry. The USDA’s data suggests the need for transformation, but instead the agency is helping meat companies continue to deceive the public. Encouraging only voluntary testing amounts to a signal that deceptive labeling is an acceptable business strategy. The USDA’s response is pretending that this highly profitable mislabeling is happening by accident. The pattern suggests the mislabeling is by design.”

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Jewish institutions–like Hillels, synagogues, and summer camps–often serve as hubs of community life. Within these spaces, we practice and celebrate our shared values and traditions. Central to these communal experiences is the food we share, which nourishes both body and soul.

An organizational food policy serves as a guide that outlines how food is sourced, prepared, and served within institutions. Some Jewish organizations already have established food practices, such as preferred kashrut standards or accommodations for dietary requests on an as-needed basis. Formalizing best practices into an organizational food policy can improve kitchen and food operations while expressing a community’s values.

Why Develop an Organizational Food Policy?

Developing an organizational food policy is an opportunity to embody Jewish values through the lens of communal dietary choices. It reflects a community’s commitment to sustainability, justice, compassion, and inclusivity. By creating an official food policy we turn these values into long-term commitments to be implemented across all of an organization’s activities.

Moreover, plant-forward food policies ensure that everyone feels welcome and valued within our communal spaces. By reducing or eliminating ingredients with common allergens–like milk and eggs–from menus, we can create inherently more inclusive dining experiences. Accommodating diverse dietary preferences and needs promotes a sense of belonging for all members of the community.

DefaultVeg: A Plant-Based Nudge Strategy

DefaultVeg, also called “greener by default” or “plant-based by default,” is a simple yet powerful nudge strategy that promotes plant-forward eating. Essentially, it involves making plant-based options the default choice in communal settings.

Making plant-based food the default can help reshape what people in our communities think of as a “normal” meal. Whether at a conference or a Shabbat dinner, this approach recognizes that individuals are influenced by the choices presented to them and that their choices have a huge impact.

By serving plant-based meals by default, your organization offers the chance for community members to easily make more humane and sustainable food choices. With a DefaultVeg food policy, everyone can choose the meal that’s right for them.

Bring Jewish Values to the Table 

For centuries, the question of what’s kosher, or “fit” for Jewish communities has guided our daily actions, religious identities, and moral values. Today, industrialized animal agricultural practices like factory farming, are the norm for 99% of animals in our food system. Kosher-certified animal products are no exception. Along with the lives of farmed animals, intensive farming practices have dire consequences for our world.

Reducing the animal products our community serves and choosing higher-welfare meat, when possible, embodies the Jewish value of tza’ar ba’alei chayim–preventing unnecessary suffering to living creatures. By embracing sustainable practices such as sourcing local ingredients, prioritizing plant-based foods, and minimizing food waste, organizations exemplify the Jewish values of bal tashchit–avoiding wasteful destruction–and sh’mirat ha’adamah–protecting the Earth.

From animal welfare to environmental justice to public health, there are many Jewish values-based reasons to commit to alternatives to industrial animal agriculture. Through plant-forward organizational food policies, we turn these commitments into action.

Take Action for Your Community

Jewish tradition offers a rich tapestry of values and teachings that emphasize ethical eating. Developing an organizational food policy rooted in this tradition allows institutions to authentically embody their core beliefs through their food practices.

JIFA works with Jewish institutions to build a more humane and sustainable future, starting with the food we buy and serve to our communities. We offer resources, education, and a free consultation to help your community establish a values-based food policy. Together, we will create a more humane, sustainable, and compassionate future for all beings.

Contact JIFA to schedule your free consultation.

Update: December 5, 2023: The EFFECTIVE Food Procurement Act has been assigned bill numbers: S.3390 in the Senate and H.R.6569 in the House of Representatives.

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In anticipation of the 2024 Farm Bill, we are proud to play a part in introducing new federal legislation that would leverage billions of dollars of food spending by USDA to help build a more just, healthy, and sustainable food system. 

Introduced by Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass) and Congresswoman Alma Adams (NC-12), the Enabling Farmer, Food worker, Environmental, and Climate Targets through Innovative, Values-aligned, and Equitable (EFFECTIVE) Food Procurement Act would direct and support USDA to shift toward values-aligned food procurement. The legislation would benefit workers, farmed animals, and the environment alike, and has been endorsed by more than 200 organizations.  

The vast majority of USDA’s food purchases are not congruent with its own values-based goals and policy objectives like mitigating climate change, conserving natural resources, building resilient supply chains, supporting socially disadvantaged producers and worker well-being, and expanding healthy choices for schools and its other program beneficiaries. 

The EFFECTIVE Food Procurement Act would change that. The Act was inspired by a new Federal Good Food Purchasing Coalition (FGFP Coalition), of which Farm Forward is a founding member. The FGFP Coalition grew out of the Good Food Purchasing Program (GFPP), a flexible metric-based framework that encourages large institutions to direct their buying power toward six core values including equity, nutrition, valued workforce, animal welfare, environmental sustainability, and community-based economies. For years, we have led the team that updates GFPP’s animal welfare value area. As GFPP has been implemented by dozens of cities, municipalities, and school districts across the country, we have seen the outsized role that the federal government plays in food purchasing. This year we joined with other GFPP leaders in a concerted effort to redirect those federal food dollars, almost 40 percent of which in 2022 was spent on animal products. In 2022, The biggest food purchaser in the federal government, USDA, spent more than four billion dollars on commodity foods for school districts, food banks, low-income seniors, foreign aid, and Indian reservations. 

The USDA primarily purchases from a handful of agricultural megacorporations, many of which have repeatedly violated labor, environmental, and animal welfare laws. For example, Tyson Foods accounted for 43 percent of USDA poultry spending in 2022, despite incurring more than 30 workplace and environmental violations within three years of receiving their contract, and USDA suspending program personnel at Tyson due to what USDA termed “egregious violation of the humane handling requirements” that very year. 

The EFFECTIVE Food Procurement Act would shift USDA away from evaluating bids based only on cost to evaluating bids based on multiple values, including equity, worker well-being, climate mitigation, animal welfare, resilient supply chains, and nutrition. While increasing transparency in USDA spending, the Act would (among other things) measure and reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with USDA’s procurement, provide grants and technical assistance to small and socially disadvantaged producers and businesses, and shift USDA’s purchases of animal products from the lowest common denominator to more pasture-raised livestock, more farms participating in independent animal welfare certification programs, and more plant-based proteins.

The social and environmental benefit of such shifts would be staggering. Earlier this year the FGFP Coalition produced a report on federal food purchasing with findings including: 

• The USDA is the largest direct food purchaser in the federal government, and combined with the Department of Defense accounts for 90 percent of direct federal food purchases, which totaled more than $9 billion in 2022.
• The USDA Foods Program had a carbon footprint of more than 19 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent between the school year of 2018 and 2019, equal to the annual emissions from 4.1 million cars.
• Replacing 25 percent of federal animal product purchases with plant-based sources of protein would spare 26,736,641 animal lives, make available 9.3 million acres of land (equal to the size of Maryland), save $248 million, and reduce 1.6 million tons of Co2e annually—more than the equivalent of taking every passenger vehicle in Washington, D.C. and Alaska out of commission, all year, every year.

On November 7, Farm Forward and other representatives of the FGFP Coalition met with Senator Richard Blumenthal’s (D-CT) office, and we’re pleased that Senator Blumenthal has now signed on as the bill’s Senate cosponsor. 

You may be interested to review the FGFP Coalition’s report on how we could better leverage federal food purchasing for climate, environmental, and social benefits, and the Civil Eats article about the Act. But most importantly: all U.S. residents can contact their senators and representatives to ask that they support the EFFECTIVE Food Procurement Act. Just look up their phone numbers on the Senate and House directory, and call them to ask your Senators to support S. 3390, Senator Edward Markey’s EFFECTIVE Food Procurement Act, and your Representative to support H.R. 6569, Congresswoman Alma Adams’s EFFECTIVE Food Procurement Act.

Good food purchasing at the federal level is the next step in how we are building a better future for American workers, communities, ecosystems, and farmed animals. Together, we are building a future free of factory farms.

When our team talks about helping communities align their food practices with their Jewish values, we often skirt past the second part of that mission: strengthening Jewish American communities in the process.

Food plays an integral symbolic and visceral role in strengthening our communities. When we source our meals from places and practices that are consonant with our Jewish values (however they are prioritized from community to community), the members of our communities are also cared for more deeply. And perhaps the fabric of our communal connection is strengthened in knowing that the larger living community–farmed animals, farm and food workers, rural communities, wildlife, and ecosystems–are given the opportunity to flourish. Perhaps we as Jewish eaters gain strength when we bring intention and attention to the chain of transmission that brings food to our plates and to one another.

Our ability to support and strengthen communities multiplies exponentially when we collaborate with a broader village of members. This is why we are thrilled to formally partner with the Rabbinical Assembly and the Conservative Jewish Movement on a groundbreaking cohort program to support up to 7 denomination-affiliated organizations in adopting sustainable kosher food policies. We expect each participating institution to achieve, at a minimum, a 20% reduction in the volume of animal products served.

Why is this cohort program unique?

Many Jewish communities care about the impact of the food they choose to serve and are seeking ways to improve the sustainability of their food choices. While some organizations recognize the crucial role that food sourcing and serving plays in our quest for climate health, harm reduction to people and other animals, and even broader food security, sustainable food practices are not yet the norm in our communities, nor are they widely understood as an necessary step toward achieving minimal greenhouse gas emissions, water, and land use with which Jewish institutions are increasingly concerned.

This program provides a way for institutions to achieve these goals with the practical and educational support from JIFA’s team and the leadership support of the Conservative Movement. While the pilot program will run for one year, each community will come away with a lasting and implementable sustainable food policy.

What is the potential impact of sustainable food policies?

JIFA helps communities adjust food programs where the most positive change is possible. We work creatively on changing their “choice architecture” to help incorporate more sustainable, plant-rich foods instead of  foods that come from harmful industrial practices. To implement these changes we help communities design menus, events, and even dining halls to make the sustainable choice the easy choice.

Changing the meals we serve to community members has a much greater potential to decrease our collective greenhouse gas emissions than other sustainability initiatives, like upgrading our light bulbs or installing low-flow toilets. Making our meals plant-based by default drastically decreases our contribution to climate change and drought, cutting our meals’ greenhouse gas emissions by half and water footprint by up to two-thirds.

If this were scaled to the broader population, we could see unprecedented preservation of our natural resources and consequently a more livable planet: research has shown that without our current levels of meat and dairy consumption, we could reduce global farmland use by more than 75% and still feed all people–an opportunity that our Jewish values of preserving life beckon us to consider.

Why is The Rabbinical Assembly leading this charge?

The Conservative Movement has passionately addressed the ethical implications of our food choices and production practices for decades. RA clergy have advocated for values-aligned practices that extend to every level in the food production chain, including advocating for kosher practices in animal agriculture that better reflect Jewish values.

Just last year, the RA passed a resolution stating that “shifts to our institutional food practices, such as reducing factory-farmed animal product consumption, would help us to better achieve our values.” The resolution also tasked the Social Justice Commission with creating a subcommittee that would “revisit [the RA’s] work in the area of ethical food consumption.” Rav Natan Freller, head of the aforementioned Ethically Sourced Food Subcommittee, is enthusiastic about achieving these goals with JIFA’s support:

“The Rabbinical Assembly has been looking for a partner, with knowledge and resources, to help us educate our communities about the important ethical challenges posed by industrial farming and the potential for plant-forward foods to better align our food choices with our values. This unique partnership between JIFA and the RA is exactly what we needed to get started on this long-term cultural change process, raising awareness about how we make better choices regarding the food we serve and eat. I’m very excited to see this pilot project in action soon and hopeful to see all the good it will disseminate in our communities.”

We are so pleased that the RA has chosen JIFA as a primary partner for this work.

Eating together is an opportunity for connection, fellowship, and significant conversations. We are excited to support this upcoming cohort in strengthening their connection to food, to Jewish life, and to one another as we work on aligning communal food practices with Jewish values.

In June, the USDA announced modest, but encouraging, reforms to the regulations around meat labeling, offering new  guidelines companies must follow if they want to label their products as “humanely raised,” “free range,” or “raised without antibiotics.” These changes are a promising development considering how widespread the phenomenon of humanewashing is across the meat industry. In fact, our recent collaboration with Data for Progress revealed that deceptive labeling of the meat industry is central to how the industry maintains public support; for example, the results showed that the majority of American consumers report that they would be more skeptical of meat companies upon learning that a company engaged in humanewashing.

While the new guidelines from the USDA are a step in the right direction, we think that much more needs to be done for meat labels to meet the public’s expectations. Specifically, we think that the current USDA proposal to “recommend” companies submit more evidence to verify their animal-raising claims and “encourage” third-party certifications to verify such claims, is not sufficient to protect consumers from misleading labels. We think, for example, meat labeled “raised without antibiotics” must be required to submit regular, high-sensitivity testing for antibiotics—something that our recent survey confirms the public already expects.

In response to the USDA’s announcement, Farm Forward sent a letter to Sandra Eskin, the Deputy Undersecretary of Food Safety at the USDA, sharing our concerns and offering actionable recommendations that would help ensure consumer trust in meat labeling. Specifically, we recommended that the USDA:

1. Require meaningful third-party certifications to verify animal raising claims like “humanely raised” and “pasture raised;”

2. Update labeling expectations to require a comprehensive written explanation of a producer’s interpretation of the claim and how their practices significantly surpass the minimum industry standards;

3. Strengthen the definition of “pasture raised” poultry to align it better with consumer expectations (i.e., slow-growing birds living their lives on vegetated pasture);

4. Require companies applying to label their meat as “raised without antibiotics” to verify that the claim is accurate through high-sensitivity testing.

We will continue to work with the USDA to ensure that animal raising claims on meat at least meet consumer expectations. You can read the full letter to the USDA here.

The USDA announced 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 has long been concerned that most, if not all, animal raising claims confuse the public and humanewash meat company practices. Farm Forward’s own 2021 consumer survey showed that nearly half (45 percent) of Americans think that labels that “certify high welfare” should guarantee that animals are always raised on pasture. However, we know that—regardless of the label you see on the package—finding products from animals raised on pasture is nearly impossible.

As it stands, most animal raising claims have no formal definition, and meat companies simply define the terms, often describing practices that are barely different from standard industry practices. Earlier this year, Farm Forward, along with the Animal Welfare Institute, encouraged Senators Blumenthal (D-CT) and Booker (D-NJ) to take action on this issue, and as a result, they championed a letter urging the USDA to better define and regulate animal raising claims to protect consumers and small farmers.

The need for reform to labeling couldn’t be more urgent, especially when it comes to the “raised without antibiotics” claim. Last year, Farm Forward’s antibiotics investigation revealed that a cattle product that was Certified Organic, Animal Welfare Certified, and “raised without antibiotics” tested positive for a prohibited antibiotic. This was followed by a peer-reviewed paper (and subsequent public attention) which found that 26 percent of cattle labeled as Animal Welfare Certified, which prohibits animals from being treated with antibiotics, came from a feedlot where at least one animal tested positive for antibiotics. The Animal Welfare Certified program is widely used by Whole Foods Market.

The USDA’s announcement today signaled a willingness to require meat companies labeling meat as “raised without antibiotics” to prove, through testing, that the claim is true, but a lot depends on the details. The USDA intends to conduct its own research, and it may still decide not to require testing. Testing is essential to ensure the “raised without antibiotics” claim is truthful. In our 2022 survey, 49 percent of respondents—the plurality—incorrectly thought that the “raised without antibiotics” label means that the product was tested for antibiotic residue. We hope the USDA will require testing and meet consumer expectations.

The steps outlined in the USDA’s announcement—while encouraging—may not be enough to ensure that animal raising claims are meaningful. For example, USDA said they would “recommend” companies submit more evidence to verify their claims and would “encourage” third-party certifications to verify the claims. Neither of those are binding requirements, and given how widespread deception is on grocery store shelves today, anything less may end up missing the mark.

The USDA’s announcement encourages—but does not require—third-party certification, meaning that meat companies may be left to police themselves. Even if the USDA does require third-party certification, it’s critical that they disqualify industry-controlled humanewashing certifications like One Health Certified or American Humane as evidence that a company has indeed raised animals in more humane conditions. Until the USDA sets clear standards for claims like “humanely raised” that are meaningfully above industry standard, and those standards are verified by independent certifications, consumers should be wary when buying products with these labels.

Farm Forward will continue to fight humanewashing and push the USDA to better regulate meat labels to protect consumers and farmers. Join us to help us end humanewashing.

A key goal of the project to move beyond factory farming in the U.S. should be to accelerate the enactment of state and local policy to hold the meat industry accountable for the harm it inflicts on people, animals, and the environment. To further this goal, Farm Forward is collaborating with Yale Law School’s CAFE Law and Policy Lab and other NGOs to develop innovative policy approaches that can be enacted at the state and municipal level to challenge factory farming practices. A coalition of nonprofits will work collaboratively with Yale law and other graduate students to research and understand modern legal and policy challenges for those working to challenge factory farming. The insights and findings generated by the students will complement and support existing policy efforts, providing valuable resources for activists, citizens, and policymakers at the state and local levels.

A critical feature of this work is the theory of change under which we’re operating: the complex problem of industrial animal farming will require a collective, diverse, and intersectional method of policy decision-making and reform, and no single justice area (e.g., environmental justice, labor rights, animal protection, or farmer advocacy) should be advanced at the sacrifice of another.

Like climate change and wealth inequality, factory farming is a wicked problem; its harms to people, animals, the climate and environment are varied, mutually reinforcing, and resistant to change; it doesn’t have a singular, let alone an easily identifiable solution. It’s a unique phenomenon that manifests itself politically, economically, and culturally and therefore requires a nuanced approach that isn’t reducible to only one framework or mode of understanding.

Moving beyond factory farming with public policy

Over the past ten years, the farmed animal protection movement has invested heavily in two strategies—alternative protein and corporate welfare campaigns. While these strategies have significant merit and should be pursued, they are not the only strategies available to the animal advocacy movement. An axiom of our collaboration with Yale Law School is that state and local policy specifically should be explored to meaningfully address the social costs of industrial animal agriculture. This is consistent with Farm Forward’s goal: to build the will, including political will, to end factory farming. To that end, numerous promising efforts across the U.S. should inspire optimism.

For example, Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) introduced the Industrial Agriculture Accountability Act late last year, which introduced a swath of new protections and regulations for confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs). More recently, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) introduced the Transparency in Depopulation Act, which would “prevent federal funding from being used for some of the most inhumane methods of animal slaughter.” While policies of this sort are unlikely to become law in the near term, they galvanize meaningful attention to the issue at the highest level of government.

And in a surprising—and uplifting—move, the Supreme Court decided to uphold California’s Proposition 12, which prohibits the sale of pork from farming operations that use gestation crates for sows regardless of where in the U.S. the pork was produced.

Several promising policy proposals introduced or implemented outside of Washington DC also challenge the institutional power of CAFOs. One particularly exciting multi-state effort is the Good Food Purchasing Program (GFPP), which pushes large institutions, like municipalities, to filter their food procurement through five domains: local economies, health, valued workforce, animal welfare, and environmental sustainability. Values-based procurement policies of this type have been adopted by a number of cities across the U.S., from Los Angeles to Chicago to Boston.

Many other promising initiatives and developments are taking root across the country. Citizen activists and state lawmakers have proposed statewide CAFO moratoriums; controversial ag-gag laws have been struck down in a number of states; the US’ only octopus farm had the most controversial components of its operation halted; cities have proposed comprehensive plant-based procurement policies. In addition, consider all of the work being done by environmental justice groups and labor organizations (among many others) to oppose the political and economic power of CAFOs throughout the U.S.

Conclusion

Among the great number of diverse approaches and strategies employed by the farm animal protection movement today, advocating for robust social policy addressing the different dimensions of harm caused by CAFOs is undoubtedly among the most promising.

The harms of factory farming are not isolated to one group but rather are inflicted upon workers, farmers, animals, neighboring communities, the environment, the climate, and public health. This collaboration between Farm Forward, Yale, and other NGOs signifies a commitment to an intersectional approach to ending factory farming, which centers the importance of building diverse coalitions for the broader effort of building political will.

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

Farm Forward welcomed the World Health Organization (WHO) Intergovernmental Negotiating Body’s recent request for public guidance on the question, “What substantive elements do you think should be included in a new international instrument on pandemic preparedness and response?”

We submitted a comment we consider critical for pandemic preparedness: factory farming poses the greatest future pandemic risk. With the CDC reporting that three out of four new or emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic, it’s critical that the global public health community focus on the issue that will most materially reduce future risk of pandemics—namely factory farming. 

We call on world leaders to bring the age of factory farming to an end.

Here’s our comment as submitted to the WHO:

Any global effort to reduce pandemic risk must focus on reforming industrial animal agriculture. Deintensifying existing poultry and pig farming while placing a moratorium on new factory farm construction is the public health measure that would most dramatically reduce the risk of the next pandemic virus.

Factory farms, especially pig and poultry farms, are breeding grounds for pandemics. Influenza viruses such as H1N1 (swine flu) or H5N1 (bird flu) evolved on pig and chicken farms. Genetic analyses have shown that crucial components of H1N1 emerged from a virus circulating in North American pigs, and an analysis of 39 antigenic shifts that played a key role in the emergence of particularly dangerous influenzas showed that “all but two of these events were reported in commercial poultry production systems.”

Influenza and coronaviruses move fluidly between animal and human populations, just as they move fluidly between nations. When it comes to pandemics, there is not animal health and human health—not any more than there is Korean health and French health. Farmed animals today are overwhelmingly genetically uniform, immunocompromised, and lodged together by the tens of thousands—a perfect petri dish for creating pandemics.

The era of intensive confinement of farmed animals must come to an end.

World leaders must build a future without industrial animal agriculture, and transition toward plant-based foods and sustainable farming practices that enhance rather than imperil
public health.

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Lead image credit: We Animals Media

United Nations scientists warn that a climate catastrophe is coming, and a leaked UN document urges a shift to plant-based proteins as a strategy to stave off the most dire scenarios.

Read on to learn about political, institutional, and individual remedies already underway. Though it can feel like actions of an individual, institution, or state do not matter, when it comes to climate change, the opposite is true. Every bit of climate change mitigated matters, so every meal matters.

“Code red for humanity”

Released last month, part one of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC’s) sixth report (AR6) pulls together findings from more than 14 thousand peer-reviewed studies. In the strongest language the IPCC has ever used, and for the first time, the IPCC stated that it is “unequivocal” that humans have caused “widespread and rapid” changes to ocean, land, and atmospheric temperatures, and that many of these changes are “irreversible.”

The report says that because climate change is cumulative, we will see unavoidable intensification over the next 30 years. That is, even if the world dramatically cut emissions starting today, a hotter future is certain. In all scenarios, by “the early 2030s,” average global temperatures will rise 1.5°C over preindustrial levels.

That kind of temperature change may not sound like much, but it brings with it cataclysms and catastrophes. As the New York Times explained upon the release of the report,

“At 1.5 degrees of warming, scientists have found … Nearly 1 billion people worldwide could swelter in more frequent life-threatening heat waves. Hundreds of millions more would struggle for water because of severe droughts. Some animal and plant species alive today will be gone. Coral reefs, which sustain fisheries for large swaths of the globe, will suffer more frequent mass die-offs.”1

Unless we dramatically cut emissions, we can expect additional degrees of warming over 1.5°C as the century progresses, bringing more wildfires, floods, rising sea levels, and animal and plant extinctions.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres says that AR6 is nothing less than “a code red for humanity. The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable.”2

Humanity must act decisively, now, if we are to limit average global temperature rise to just 1.5 degrees. Thankfully, the report states, there is still time to act.

Leaked UN report urges switch to plant-based protein

Not scheduled for public release before March 2022, the leaked third section of AR6 focuses on ways to reduce human impacts to the climate. It reads in part, “A shift to diets with a higher share of plant-based protein in regions with excess consumption of calories and animal-source food can lead to substantial reductions in emissions, while also providing health benefits …”3

The recommended shift to plant-based proteins builds on a 2019 IPCC special report that stated that plant-based and sustainably produced animal-sourced food “present major opportunities for [climate] adaptation and mitigation.”4

This is because of industrial animal-sourced food’s disproportionate impact on climate. For example, in 2018 Oxford University researchers published in the journal Science a study of nearly 40,000 farms in 119 countries that found “meat, aquaculture, eggs, and dairy use ~83 percent of the world’s farmland and contribute 56 to 58 percent of food’s different [greenhouse gas] emissions, despite providing only 37 percent of our protein and 18 percent of our calories.”5

According to AR6, “strong, rapid, and sustained reductions” in methane emissions are critical if we are to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C and thereby prevent the worst climate scenarios. This is no surprise: over the first 20 years after methane is emitted, it is over 80 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Anthropogenic methane is the cause of more than 25 percent of today’s global warming.6 Meat and dairy production is the largest source of human-caused methane, from enteric fermentation (a digestive process of ruminants like cattle) and manure emissions.7 In fact, if cattle were their own nation, they would be the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases.8 9

Following the release of the 2019 IPCC report, Hans-Otto Pörtner, an ecologist who co-chairs the IPCC’s working group on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability, said,  “We don’t want to tell people what to eat, but it would indeed be beneficial, for both climate and human health, if people in many rich countries consumed less meat, and if politics would create appropriate incentives to that effect.”10

The political and personal: every change matters

Some US politicians have put forward policy options that take seriously industrial animal agriculture’s contributions to the climate catastrophe.

In July 2021, Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Congressman Ro Khanna (D-CA) reintroduced the Farm System Reform Act (FSRA), which would place an immediate moratorium (pause) on construction of new and expanded large confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs), and phase out the largest CAFOs by 2040.11 The Act is the boldest vision for American agriculture that we have ever seen put forward on a national policy stage. Federal legislation related to animal farming more typically reflects the vision of a small number of corporate meat companies’ lobbyists and advocates in government. In contrast, the vision outlined in the FSRA contains several first steps toward Farm Forward’s own vision for agriculture—ending factory farming, leveling the playing field for independent farmers, and raising fewer animals for food.

Another example: In June 2021, Reps. Nydia M. Velázquez (D-NY) and Jamaal Bowman, Ed.D (D-NY) introduced the “Healthy Future Students and Earth Pilot Program Act,” which would fund healthier, climate friendly, culturally appropriate plant-based entrée options for public school students. “At the same time as we invest urgently in the transition to renewable energy, we must build sustainable food systems at every level of our society—and our public education system can lead the way,” said Rep. Bowman.12 He noted that the bill would advance food justice in marginalized communities and support local farmers of color while fighting the climate crisis with healthier, plant-based food. The bill would fund $10 million in grants for a voluntary pilot program to help school districts address challenges in transitioning to plant-based meals, such as lack of culinary training.13

While politicians debate, it is incumbent that individuals and institutions take their own steps to mitigate climate change. Farm Forward has long supported efforts to reduce meat consumption, and recently began promoting DefaultVeg, an approach to dining which uses simple behavioral “nudges” to encourage institutional and home diners to choose more climate-friendly foods, without restricting anyone’s choices. The use of plant-forward defaults is enormously effective: for example, making plant-based meals the default menu option while giving people the choice to opt in to meals with animal products (an approach called “Greener by Default”) can increase the selection of more sustainable plant-based options by an average of 60 percentage points and up to 80 percentage points. Dozens of institutions are adopting plant-based nudges, from Harvard recommending them in its catering guide to organizations like Climate Nexus and the American Lung Association committing to use them for their events.

Sometimes when facing a problem as vast in scope as the climate crisis, it feels like actions of an individual, institution, and even a city, state or nation do not matter. In fact, when it comes to climate change, the opposite is true. Every fraction of a degree of temperature rise in the decades ahead will have consequences, particularly for the world’s most vulnerable. So every action matters, every bit of climate change mitigated matters, and every meal matters.

And they matter, too, because individual and institutional decisions often ramify: they influence and motivate other individuals and institutions, redefining what is “normal” and even eventually leading to political change. Decisions made for dining room tables, offices, schools, hospitals, and university departments become the social norms that change society and eventually change politics.

The good news embedded in the IPCC report is that there is still time to act to avoid the worst scenarios. No one person, institution, or country can do everything. Still, we can each do something. Do what you can, knowing that every day, more and more people are doing the same. And please donate to Farm Forward so that we can keep this good work going.

Header image: Food photo created by freepik – www.freepik.com 

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.

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

Washington, DC — Today Farm Forward joined nearly 300 local, state and national advocacy organizations in sending a letter to Congress urging passage of the Farm System Reform Act (S.3221/HR.6718), introduced by Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA). As COVID-19 further exposes the exploitation and injustice in the food system, the letter recognizes that “this visionary legislation meets the scale of action necessary to transform our farming and food system in a timeline that reflects the urgency of its problems.” The letter was facilitated by the national advocacy organization Food & Water Action, and signed by others groups including Family Farm Action, Waterkeeper Alliance, Johns Hopkins Center For A Livable Future and ASPCA (The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals).  

Among other things, the Farm System Reform Act would halt the establishment of new factory farm operations (otherwise known as concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs) and prohibit the expansion of existing ones. It would also provide a $100 billion voluntary buyout program for contract farmers who wish to transition away from the factory farm system. 

“The factory farm agricultural model, which dominates our country’s food system, fuels toxic air and water contamination, drives dangerous and unfair working conditions, wreaks havoc on independent farmers and rural communities, and threatens food safety,” said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, the organizer of the letter. “The Farm System Reform Act is the bold approach we need to bring dangerous factory farming under control now, and begin the necessary transformation to a safe and equitable future for food consumers and workers alike.” 

“Our independent family farmers and ranchers are continuing to be squeezed by large, multinational corporations that, because of their buying power and size, run roughshod over the marketplace. We need to fix the broken system – that means protecting family farmers and ranchers and holding corporate integrators responsible for the harm they are causing,” said Senator Cory Booker. “Large factory farms are harmful to rural communities, public health, and the environment and we must immediately begin to transition to a more sustainable and humane system.” 

“The Farm System Reform Act will ensure that huge corporations no longer have a stranglehold on our food supply,” said Representative Ro Khanna. “It’s important for our farmers, the economy, the environment, and animal welfare. I’m proud to see the growing coalition of groups organizing to support the bill.” 

As the letter points out,  “…The U.S. food system is dominated by factory farms that confine tens of thousands of animals in cramped, unsanitary conditions; these conditions place the safety of our food at risk, pollute our air and water, harm the welfare of animals and workers, extract wealth from rural communities, increase the risk of antibiotic resistant bacteria and increase corporate control of our food.” 

This legislation will revitalize independent family farm agriculture and rural communities by: 

• Placing a moratorium on new and expanding large factory farms 
• Phasing out existing large factory farms by 2040 
• Holding corporate integrators responsible for harm caused by factory farms 
• Providing a $100 billion voluntary buyout program for contract farmers who want to transition away from factory farms 
• Strengthening the Packers & Stockyards Act to protect family farmers and ranchers 
• Restoring mandatory Country of Origin Labeling for meat, and including dairy products 
• Prohibiting USDA from labeling foreign imported meat products as “Product of USA”  

“The Farm System Reform Act will rein in multinational agribusiness control over livestock production,” said Jake Davis, Senior Policy Advisor for Family Farm Action. “The factory farm model is designed to bolster these corporations’ bottom line while extracting wealth from family farmers and rural communities, and that has to stop. We are proud to join such a broad coalition of supporters calling for change in our broken food system.”    

“Nearly 10 billion animals are raised on U.S. factory farms every year, crowded together in intensive, cruel confinement and unable to carry out even the most basic natural behaviors. The COVID-19 pandemic has further exposed the cruelty of industrial animal agriculture, fueling an urgent need to build a more humane and resilient food system that values animals, people, and our planet,” said Daisy Freund, vice president of Farm Animal Welfare for the ASPCA. “The Farm System Reform Act offers a roadmap for moving away from destructive, confinement-based animal agriculture toward higher-welfare farming practices and sustainable crop production. We are grateful to Senator Booker and Representative Khanna for their leadership on this legislation, and we are proud to support this bold vision for a more compassionate food system, free of factory farming.” 

“The provisions of this bill, including the $100 billion voluntary buyout program for contract farmers who want to transition away from industrial animal agriculture, would protect watersheds around the country,” said Waterkeeper Alliance Executive Director Marc Yaggi. “That’s one of the reasons more than 50 Waterkeeper groups in the U.S. endorsed this bill. It will provide real — and necessary — improvements to waterways that have been impacted by pathogens, excess nutrients, and harmful algal blooms for far too long.”    

The sign-on letter calls for passage of the Farm System Reform Act and a ban on factory farms in order to benefit independent farms, rural communities, food safety, our air and water, and the welfare of animals. It is signed by over 250 organizations including those mentioned above and  Family Farm Defenders, Food Chain Workers Alliance, HEAL (Health, Environment, Agriculture, Labor) Food Alliance, Contract Poultry Growers Association of the Virginias, Friends of Family Farmers, Pennsylvania Farmers Union, Indiana Farmers Union, and Women, Food and Agriculture Network (WFAN). 

In sum, this historic legislation has the potential to change the conversation about the future of animal agriculture in America. Farm Forward’s vision for American agriculture, which includes an end to concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and a transition to more just, sustainable, and humane forms of agriculture, is one step closer to reality thanks to the introduction of the Farm System Reform Act.  

This week Farm Forward, along with a coalition of more than 50 organizations, called on Congress to prevent corporate factory farm companies from receiving COVID-19 relief funds, and instead to direct funds to small and midsize farmers and food chain workers who have been disproportionately impacted by the crisis.   

Our letter asks Congressional leaders to: 

• Prohibit industrial animal agriculture operations and corporate parents from receiving any COVID-19 bailout funding. 
• Support small and mid-size farmers to continue producing food and keeping their farms operational. 
• Protect food and farm workers. 
• Put a priority on ensuring food security and access to a range of healthy produce for those most vulnerable to the effects of COVID-19 and the dislocation it’s causing. 
• Oppose any efforts to weaken or waive environmental regulations for industrial agriculture. 
• Ensure that recovery funds provide long-term security for small farmers and invest in a just and equitable transition. 
• Invest in public health, food security and small farmers by increasing the accessibility of plant-based foods and addressing food waste. 

Industrial livestock producers benefit from huge financial subsidies and regulatory advantages relative to other food producers. COVID-19 economic relief and investments should prioritize an equitable and sustainable food system rather than bailout consolidated meat, poultry, and dairy companies. We can and must invest in the food production systems that build resilience, conserve water, protect biodiversity, promote soil health, and prioritize animal welfare.  

If you’d like to be a part of our work to change the way our world eats and farms, please become a monthly supporter today. 

Seattle University and Redhawk Dining are excited to announce joining  Farm Forward’s Leadership Circle. Farm Forward is a nonprofit that promotes conscientious food choices and supports higher welfare farming. Members of the Leadership Circle leverage their buying power to encourage higher welfare farming practices and to support farmers who are third-party certified for animal welfare standards. Seattle U is the 16th institution to join the Leadership Circle, which includes other leading institutions such as the University of California, Berkeley, Villanova University, and Harvard Business School. 

As a member of the Leadership Circle, Seattle U has committed to buying 100 percent of its eggs from farms that are certified higher welfare and to align with the Leadership Circle’s sourcing requirements. Seattle U is the first Chartwells institution to join the Leadership Circle and they hope other Chartwells schools follow along in their path. “Chartwells believes that wellness goes beyond our dining halls” said Brianna Ballard, Wellness and Sustainability Manager with Redhawk Dining. “We are excited to join the Leadership Circle, highlighting our commitment to providing sustainable options to help guests live their life to the fullest.” 

Joining the Leadership Circle is part of Seattle U’s broader effort to become a more sustainable university. Seattle U has a goal to reduce their carbon emissions 12 percent by 2020, and 51 percent by 2035; however, food is currently not a part of these measurements. Yolanda Cieters, Sustainability Manager with the SU Center for Environmental Justice and Sustainability, stated, “Since livestock are responsible for 14.5 percent of greenhouse gas emissions globally, an understanding of Seattle U’s emissions from food is necessary to obtain a more accurate emissions count. We are working with Redhawk Dining this year to set a baseline for food emissions.” 

Redhawk Dining is also interested in incorporating more plant-based meals and plant-forward menus on campus, so they can decrease their carbon emissions while serving delicious, healthy food to students and faculty. To make it easier for other school departments, conferences, and meetings to serve less carbon-intensive foods and still give diners the option to opt in for animal products, they are looking to develop a DefaultVeg catering menu in the new year as well. “From sourcing our ingredients to preparing our menus, we keep health and wellness at the forefront of everything we do,” said Andrew Gaynor, Executive Campus Chef. “Plant-based options benefit the well-being of our community as well as the sustainability of the planet.” 

For more information, contact Brianna Ballard at brianna.ballard@compass-usa.com. 

Portland, OR —Following a request for a permit by a proposed eastern Oregon factory farm to build another mega-dairy on the site of the disastrous Lost Valley Farm, 21 groups, including members of the Stand Up to Factory Farms Coalition, of which Farm Forward is a member, sent a letter today to Gov. Brown and the directors of the Oregon Departments of Environmental Quality and Agriculture voicing their fervent opposition to granting a permit to Easterday Farms. The groups warn that granting a permit to the mega-dairy would mean doubling down on the failed approach that led to the Lost Valley Farm debacle. That mega-dairy was shut down by the state after hundreds of documented environmental violations, including overflowing mortalities storage, as well as egregious conditions for animals and workplace health and safety abuses.  

The coalition warns that the rush to grant Lost Valley a permit exposed a systemic failure to fully weigh the environmental and health dangers before green-lighting industrial mega-dairy operations. They say the permitting process should be overhauled before considering the request by Easterday Farms to open yet another mega-dairy of nearly 30,000 cows on the same site. Last year the state legislature failed to enact stronger protections to avoid another disaster like Lost Valley Farms.  

The Stand Up to Factory Farms coalition would like to see a moratorium on all new mega-dairy permits. 

“Lost Valley Farm showed us the state’s inability to regulate mega-dairies and keep the public safe from the environmental and health harms posed by these industrial-scale operations,” said Tarah Heinzen, senior attorney with Food & Water Action. “Now, history is threatening to repeat itself. Industrial mega-dairies have proven too unsafe for Oregon, and the state should not grant Easterday’s–or any mega-dairy’s–permits.” 

Some groups called on the governor and state regulators to take stronger measures to protect public health. 

“The communities around the proposed Easterday mega-dairy already suffer from drinking water contaminated with unsafe levels of nitrates, a public health threat that can cause reproductive and cardiovascular issues, Blue Baby Syndrome, and even cancer,” said Amy van Saun, senior attorney with the Center for Food Safety. “Putting another 30,000 cows on top of this existing pollution, bringing the number of cows in the area over 100,000, is extremely irresponsible. The state needs to protect all Oregonians, not sacrifice community health for private profit.” 

Other signatories worried that Easterday Farms could put family farmers out of business. 

“In 2016 we had significant concerns about the permitting of Lost Valley, each of which were validated as the ‘state of the art’ facility was shut down within 18 months,” said Shari Sirkin, farmer and Executive Director of Friends of Family Farmers. “Now, three years later we have the very same concerns as yet another similarly sized mega-diary seeks to set up shop in the exact same location. The overproduction of milk drives down prices, creating a negative effect on the viability of small family farms around the state, yet the ODA has refused to conduct an economic impact analysis to determine how this new mega-dairy might harm rural economies.” 

The Stand Up to Factory Farms Coalition says it will continue to press state regulators and the governor to declare a moratorium on new permits for factory farms until an effective process is put in place. 

Stand Up to Factory Farms is a coalition of local, state and national organizations concerned about the harmful impacts of mega-dairies on Oregon’s family farms, communities, the environment and animal welfare. We seek legislation or an executive order establishing a moratorium on new mega-dairies and the expansion of existing mega-dairies until policies are in place that meaningfully protect our air, water, and climate and ensure the humane treatment of animals and the economic viability of family farmers. 

“The animal welfare standards we expect our partners to adhere to are central to our sourcing practices.” -Harvest Table Culinary Group   

We’re excited to welcome Harvest Table Culinary Group (HTCG) to Farm Forward’s Leadership Circle, with the most comprehensive welfare commitment of any food service management company to date.  

HTCG is the 18th organization to join the Leadership Circle, which includes leading universities and businesses such as Harvard Business School, Villanova University, AirBnB, Burgerville, and the University of Montana. 

HTCG takes pride in bringing chef-driven, innovative, authentic and personalized food experiences to life for each college and university they serve. They align their food with students’ and campus partners’ sustainability goals, and help students understand the impact that their food choices have on the environment and their communities.  

As a member of Farm Forward’s Leadership Circle, Harvest Table Culinary Group has committed to using beef, chicken and pork that are 100 percent certified higher-welfare products, based on standards developed to further animal welfare. Certified higher welfare programs use third-party auditing to ensure that animals have more space, safe and enriched environments, and in some cases, access to pasture or outdoors. They also verify that animals are raised with no antibiotics, no added growth hormones and no animal by-products. 

“HTCG is the first Leadership Circle member to be recognized in three product categories,” said Farm Forward’s Executive Director Andrew deCoriolis, “and is the first company committed to sourcing all of its meat from third-party certified higher welfare sources, making it a national leader in promoting animal welfare.” 

HTCG’s commitment to sourcing higher welfare animal products aligns with their culinary approach. After they purchase responsibly sourced raw animal products, their kitchen brigade transforms these ingredients into final dishes using a “less volume, higher quality” approach. For example, their hamburger patty standard is a “blended smash burger,” which combines ground beef with fresh roasted mushrooms. They think creatively about how to include other plant-based ingredients such as lentils or chickpeas to drive flavor and mouthfeel in dishes like meatballs, lasagna, bolognese sauce and more. HTCG is proud that its dishes positively impact the health and wellness of their guests while reducing food’s impact on the planet.  

HTCG strives for transparency and actively communicates its partnerships with farmers and producers to guests as they dine. HTCG informs its guests where their food comes from, and more importantly, why a particular farmer or producer was chosen and what impact the partnership has in the community.  

Farm Forward applauds HTCG for adopting a kinder, more sustainable food policy. “As HTCG invests in this growing sector of the food economy,” said deCoriolis, “the food service management company paves the way to making higher welfare, more sustainable products available to other institutions and large buyers.” Moving forward, HTCG will also continue to integrate plant-based food options into their dining services, thereby improving the health and sustainability of our food system. Farm Forward congratulates HTCG on its achievement and is pleased to support HTCG’s commitment to continuous improvement on these issues. 

“We ultimately recognize that we are operating in an imperfect system. We often have to make difficult purchasing decisions based on budget, time, availability, seasonality, customer demands and staffing. Evaluating the role of meat in the dining program is complex because there is a high demand for it, but it comes with a higher cost and environmental impact than plant-based items. And yet, we ask ourselves hard questions all the time because if we don’t, we may miss opportunities. We challenge ourselves to push the boundaries in order to change our narrative, hold ourselves accountable to our values, and hopefully influence the system for the better.”

– Bethany Fong, Director of Food Services, The Northwest School

Over the past few years, more and more institutions have made the connection: our food choices impact our health, the environment, and the lives of animals, and are interwoven into many other social justice issues. The Northwest School (NWS) has taken this message to heart and changed the food they serve to align with their ethical, environmental and public health values. NWS is the first 6-12 grade school to enter into the Leadership Circle program’s Animal Welfare Track—and they didn’t stop there. They continue to source higher welfare products wherever possible, and reduce their overall consumption of animal products. 

NWS Director of Dining Services Bethany Fong has come to believe that serving fewer and higher welfare animal products serves NWS’s mission: “to graduate students with historical, scientific, artistic, and global perspective, enabling them to think and act with integrity, believing that they can have a positive impact on the world.” Jenny Cooper, NWS Director of Environmental Education and Sustainability, agrees with Bethany’s approach. “Food is the connector for all sorts of different issues and communities,” she says. “The Dining Hall connects you to large scale environmental impacts, immigration issues, and other humans in general.” In order to serve meals that align with their values in the Dining Hall, Bethany and her staff strive to serve “less and better” animal products: less meat, fish, dairy, and eggs overall, and higher welfare animal products whenever they can. 

The ‘Better’ 

Earlier this year, NWS became the first 6-12 grade school to join the Leadership Circle, by committing to source 100 percent of their eggs from third-party animal welfare certified producers. After they made the switch for eggs, Bethany began trying to find higher welfare meat suppliers as well. There have been hurdles along the way, such as higher product cost and smaller suppliers not having adequate quantities, but Bethany is determined to continue the search for higher welfare products. “NWS has a dining program grounded in the environmental sustainability and DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] values of our school” Bethany said. “Our current food system is flawed in many ways that can make it difficult to carry out those values. Given how food is produced and sold in the US, if you try to track your food back to the source you will often go down a trail that lacks transparency–one that is characterized by inequity, unfair labor practices, mistreatment of animals, poor resource management, misleading marketing, unreliable research and biased and ineffective policy. Getting to the truth can be difficult, unless you are growing your own food and raising your own animals or buying directly from farmers. Essentially, when you get closer to the source you get closer to the truth.” So far, Bethany has been able to find higher welfare beef from Skagit River Ranch and Skiyou Ranch. She’s continuing to connect with pork and chicken farmers for future purchases. 

Credit: @nws.kitchen

The ‘Less’ 

To afford higher welfare products and to live by their mission of respecting the environment, NWS serves a plant-based meal for lunch as one of the two options available every single day!  

Each day, 10-20 percent of NWS students request the plant-based option. Six days a month, NWS offer a completely vegetarian or vegan lunch where both options are either vegetarian or vegan as well. NWS recently moved away from Meatless Mondays in order to move into serving more plant-based dishes generally. “From an environmental and sustainability perspective, we don’t have to confine our meatlessness to one day,” says Jenny. “We value plant-based dining not in isolation but every day, weaving it into our practices and principles.” 

Bethany is also reviewing NWS’s menus to evaluate where she can redesign meat-based meals as more plant-forward—meaning serving meat as a garnish or a side, rather than as the main portion of the meal. Some examples include blending ground beef with a vegetable panache for a pasta sauce, or serving a chicken stir fry (with pieces of chicken and vegetables) instead of a whole cut of chicken. The kitchen team is constantly trying new menu items and new recipes to incorporate more plant-based and vegetarian meals into the menu, as well as decrease the amount of meat used in recipes. “It’s equally important that students and faculty enjoy what we are serving and that we are serving up responsible, value-driven food” she says, “so we don’t make big changes without being confident in our flavors, ingredients and process.” If you’re interested in serving more plant-forward meals at your institution, let us know –– we can help!  

Become a Leader 

We hope that others will join Bethany in her quest to find the truth about the food she serves, and to serve products that are sustainable and ethically sourced. Follow in Bethany’s footsteps by showing your support for higher welfare farmers and making a serious effort to serve more plant-forward and plant-based meals, for the health of diners, farmed animals, and our planet. To learn more about how you can change the way your institution serves food, visit our Leadership Circle website, or contact info@farmforward.com.

Today, Farm Forward along with a coalition of family farm, animal welfare, and environmental groups sent a letter to Oregon Governor Kate Brown condemning the reappointment of Marty Myers, general manager of Threemile Canyon Farms for a second four-year term on Oregon’s Board of Agriculture. The groups cited Myers’ conflict of interest in influencing policy decisions by his own mega-dairy’s regulator–the Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA)–and his track record opposing rules to limit pollution generated by industrial dairies. 

The coalition cited the approval and failed oversight of the notorious Lost Valley Farm mega-dairy which eventually had its permit revoked and was sold following numerous violations for animal waste management and storage. We believe that Myers and other Board of Agriculture members have failed to appropriately use their roles as policy advisors to advocate for needed improvements in ODA’s Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) program in the wake of the Lost Valley disaster. 

“We need an Ag Board that is willing to protect Oregonians’ air and water from contamination from mega-dairies, not industry insiders who want to continue to protect their own interests,” said Tarah Heinzen, a senior attorney with Food & Water Watch. “Allowing Myers, a mega-dairy operator, to continue to influence the Department of Agriculture as it considers permitting yet another mega-dairy at the Lost Valley site does not bode well for Eastern Oregon residents or our environment.” 

“With the reappointment of Marty Myers to the Board of Agriculture, Governor Brown has demonstrated her continued allegiance to industrialized dairy in Oregon and her lack of regard for our family-owned dairies, which continue to struggle in very difficult market conditions,” said Shari Sirkin, Executive Director of Friends of Family Farmers. “It would have been far better to appoint a real family farmer to this board, but once again, Governor Brown chose Oregon’s mega-dairies over its small, independent farms.” 

The groups blasted Governor Brown for rushing through the reappointment, without addressing community concerns about Myers’ conflict of interest.  

“This was a backroom, closed-door decision without any public review or input,” said Hannah Connor, senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. “It indicates the governor remains much more interested in appeasing corporate agricultural interests than working openly with Oregonians to make sure their air and water is safe.”  

“This is not the first time that the Governor and her agencies have shut us out of what should be a public process to regulate these massive industrial facilities,” said Amy van Saun, senior attorney with the Center for Food Safety. “Just like in the Lost Valley permit revocation process, where we were excluded from a closed-door settlement, public stakeholders have a right to a seat at the table when state policymakers are deciding the fate of our environment and public health.” 

Several of the groups criticizing Governor Brown’s decision to reappoint Myers raised similar concerns four years ago, but those concerns have gone unanswered. The organizations now seek a meeting with the Governor’s staff to discuss needed improvements to transparency and regulation of mega-dairies going forward. 

This week, on behalf of Farm Forward and a coalition of other plaintiffs, Public Justice filed a motion for summary judgment asking the Court to enjoin North Carolina from enforcing the “Anti-Sunshine Law” and declare it unconstitutional. This “ag-gag” law criminalizes whistleblowing and undercover investigations. The Anti-Sunshine Law is meant to punish anyone—employees, journalists, and even community members—who investigate the practices of a property owner or employer to bring illegal or dangerous behavior to light. The North Carolina ag-gag law is especially egregious because of the all-encompassing language it uses to criminalize any kind of whistleblowing about federal, state or private industry.  

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 reads: 

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. 

Research indicates that most consumers value and prioritize animal welfare. We believe that consumers have the right to know where their food comes from and how farmed animals were raised. These ag-gag laws were designed to prevent that.  

The hog industry dominates North Carolina, where more than nine million hogs live on factory farms. Community and animal welfare advocates have historically used undercover investigations to document evidence of the damage that CAFOs unleash on North Carolina. Since the Anti-Sunshine Law was passed, we know of just one set of investigators who have successfully exposed factory farming: our friends in the Waterkeeper Alliance, who took to the air after Hurricane Florence hit Eastern North Carolina to film CAFOs’ breached lagoons spilling millions of gallons of toxic hog waste into the surrounding ecosystems and communities. But investigators without access to personal aircraft are out of luck…and even airborne investigators can’t document what goes on inside facilities. So in passing the Anti-Sunshine law and other ag-gag legislation like it, Big Ag and its lobbyists have successfully promoted their own interests over the welfare of animals, the environment, and the communities surrounding North Carolina’s CAFOs—many of which are comprised by the state’s most marginalized residents. But Farm Forward and our allies are fighting back through this lawsuit and motion, and we’re working hard to keep the public informed about these issues.  

Farm Forward is committed to our role as a watchdog of the American food system and now more than ever—as climate change worsens, communities of color bear the brunt of our industrialized model of food production, and small and midsize farms crumble—it’s essential that we continue our fight to build a more just, healthy and equitable system for humans, animals, and the planet.  

We can’t do it without you. 

We support the lawsuit that consumers have brought against the Tillamook County Creamery Association regarding Tillamook’s representations about the company’s dairy products. 

As consumer demand grows for dairy products from animals raised more humanely on sustainable family farms, the dairy industry has been doubling down on marketing efforts to trick consumers into believing that their products reflect these consumer values when they do not. Some of Tillamook’s ads encouraged consumers to “Say Goodbye to Big Food,” despite Tillamook’s sourcing the majority of its milk from Eastern Oregon’s Threemile Canyon Farms, one of the largest mega-dairies in the country. Tillamook also bought milk from the disastrous Lost Valley Farm, an Eastern Oregon mega-dairy permitted for up to 30,000 cows that racked up hundreds of environmental violations in its first year-and-a-half of operation and has since been permanently shuttered.  

Tillamook’s marketers depict cows roaming freely on rolling green hills, while knowing that this is not the reality of how these large, industrial facilities operate. On industrial dairies, cows are intensively confined with little or no access to pasture, artificially and repeatedly impregnated starting at around two years old to produce mass quantities of milk, and separated from their young calves shortly after birth. Once they stop producing enough milk to meet the intense and unnatural industrial demand, they are culled and sent to slaughter at a fraction of their natural lifespan.  

Industrial mega-dairies are also major polluters, generating huge quantities of waste that is disposed of⁠—virtually untreated⁠—on land where it can contaminate rivers, streams, and groundwater and harm wildlife. The noxious air emissions these facilities produce can threaten public health, contribute to climate change, and decrease visibility in special places like the Columbia Gorge.  

Tillamook’s increasing reliance on industrial mega-dairies to ramp up production further contributes to overproduction, which lowers prices for family farmers and contributes to Oregon’s devastating decline in family dairies. 

Tillamook’s representations in advertising are just one example of why we need a moratorium on new and expanding mega-dairies in Oregon until the state institutes safeguards to protect Oregon’s family farmers, environment, and communities. We applaud the plaintiffs’ effort to hold Tillamook accountable for the way it markets its dairy products. 

Sign up for our weekly news updates to stay in the know about this issue and all of our other efforts to end factory farming. 

“Through thoughtful procurement policies, institutions like Harvard Business School meet growing consumer demands for more ethical and sustainable food. By making this commitment today, the school improves farmed animals’ welfare—at no increased cost.”
— Andrew deCoriolis, Farm Forward Executive Director

We’re excited to welcome Harvard Business School (HBS) to Farm Forward’s Leadership Circle. Business leaders from around the world look to HBS as the gold standard for business education. We hope that HBS’s policy prioritizing animal welfare will inspire many others.

HBS is the fourteenth institution to join the Leadership Circle, which includes other leading universities and businesses such as Bon Appétit Management Company, Burgerville, University of California Berkeley, and Villanova University.

As a member of the Leadership Circle, HBS has committed to buying 100 percent of its eggs—including both liquid and shell—from certified higher welfare farms aligned with our sourcing requirements. To implement these changes, HBS partnered with their on-site dining management company, Restaurant Associates (RA), a company of Compass Group, to identify higher welfare suppliers and to shift their purchasing. Restaurant Associates leveraged the expertise of Food Buy, the largest foodservice procurement organization in North America, to assess the impact of changing the egg supplies to operations on campus and found that switching to a higher welfare products did not increase costs to HBS. The change will impact more than 15,000 hens over the next ten years.

Farm Forward applauds HBS for adopting a kinder, more sustainable food policy. As HBS invests in this growing sector of the food economy, the school paves the way to making to higher welfare, more sustainable products readily available to other institutions and large buyers. Moving forward, HBS will explore other ways to sensibly incorporate highest welfare eggs and continue to integrate plant-based food options into their dining services, thereby improving the health and sustainability of our food system.

HBS and RA were inspired by the forthcoming Sustainable Healthful Food Standards developed by the Harvard Office for Sustainability in collaboration with Harvard’s Multidisciplinary Faculty Food Standards Committee and Council of Student Sustainability Leaders. Harvard’s Sustainable Healthful Food standards includes a recommendation that other Harvard schools work with Farm Forward to create a baseline of farmed animal welfare and to work with the Leadership Circle to develop and implement strategies to improve their dining operations. Farm Forward is pleased to support Harvard’s commitment to continuous improvement on these issues.

Two days ago, Pope Francis was challenged by 12-year-old Genesis Butler to try eating a plant-based diet for Lent, with a promise of a million dollar donation to a charity of his choice should he say yes. Ms. Butler cited motivations including climate change and animals. This campaign may be surprising, but the links between plant-based diets, climate change, animals, and religious values should not be.

If you’re reading this blog, you’re probably already familiar with the many connections between industrial animal agriculture and climate change, but you may be less familiar with their link to religious organizations. Faith organizations have published dozens of religious statements on how their spirituality calls them to fight climate change. And religious communities can make excellent forums to discuss the connection between farmed animals and climate change.

While no major religion testifies consistently about our obligations to nonhuman animals or the environment,1 all of America’s major religious faiths—Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and indigenous faiths—guide and encourage increased respect and care for nonhuman animals. Empathy, compassion, stewardship, care for creation, lovingkindness, and nonviolence are just a few of the practices commonly encouraged by these traditions, and over the years, their inclusion of nonhuman animals in the circle of compassion has only increased.

Advocates for issues like environmentalism and animal welfare would do well to pay greater attention to religious communities. Houses of worship take seriously the challenging moral questions of our age. This is the role they’ve played in society for centuries. Religious leaders speak to the open hearts and minds of people seeking guidance in their moral and ethical lives. People of faith are interested not only in these ethical precepts, but in how to apply those teachings in their lives with integrity.

In the past, as I’m preaching a sermon about human responsibilities to other animals, or about how our support of factory farms contributes to the desecration of the environment, I’ve worried about how the congregation will receive my words. After all, the links between food, animal welfare, and climate change is a subject that many would rather avoid. Yet consistently I’ve found these topics very well-received. It’s not unusual for congregants to contact me later to let me know that after the presentation they decided to reduce their meat consumption or even go entirely plant-based. One congregant who decided to go vegetarian recently wrote, “Thank you for helping me do something I’ve been hoping to do for such a long time.” Spiritual communities provide fertile soil for genuine ethical consideration, even transformation, that is not always possible in the secular world.

When a topic such as compassion for animals is lifted up in a house of worship, this indicates to believers that the subject matters greatly, deserving not only consideration but action in everyday life. When a faith community begins to discuss adopting an institutional food policy, plant-based eating is demonstrated to be not only an ideal but also a practical choice. Engaging these topics in our communities gives adherents a place to process their own changing viewpoints, and as the community becomes more accepting—even encouraging—of plant-based diets, community norms reinforce and support the individual shifts, leading to lasting changes.

Whether we believe in a God who has a plan for humanity, or that spirituality has more to do with actions than beliefs, or that we are on our own to make our way in this universe, these beliefs place a special responsibility on us: to build a more decent society. For me, that means engaging religious communities to reflect and act on their own traditions’ best teachings about our responsibilities to the environment and to other animals. For more about how to involve faith communities in this topic, contact us.

All of us have a role to play. Whether or not you happen to be the Pope, going plant-based for Lent—or encouraging others to do so—is a good place to start.

Massive News: A first-of-its-kind campaign launched by Farm Forward in 2014 has resulted in the adoption of a new technology that spares day-old chicks from being slaughtered shortly after they hatch. On December 22, 2018, The Guardian reported that the first “no-kill” eggs have reached grocery store shelves in Europe.

While no industry that raises animals for human consumption can ever be “no-kill,” broad egg industry adoption of in-ovo sexing technology could prevent the needless suffocation or maceration of at least 4-6 billion male chicks per year. Maceration—a.k.a. grinding up fully conscious baby birds—remains the most common practice for disposing of unwanted male chicks within the egg industry, but this cruel practice may soon be largely abandoned for more humane and, crucially, more profitable in-ovo sexing techniques. Rather than hatching and sexing future egg laying hens, in-ovo sexing technology allows egg producers to determine the sex of an egg days after it’s laid, long before it hatches, eliminating the need for male chicks, who are useless to the egg industry, to hatch at all.

Prior to Farm Forward’s campaign against Unilever in 2014, no animal protection group had sought to secure corporate commitments to end maceration, nor were we aware of any major governmental, corporate, or advocacy efforts suggesting that viable alternatives might be possible. “Momentum on the issue began to grow in 2014,” said The Washington Post, “when Unilever, which owns Hellman’s mayonnaise and other egg-using companies, committed to supporting in-ovo technology research and adopting it.”

Unilever, which uses millions of eggs in their products, is an industry leader on animal welfare and sustainability—they struck us as the company most likely to lead the charge. Following our campaign and subsequent negotiations, Unilever pledged to: 1) state publicly that the routine practice of macerating day-old chicks did not conform to their animal welfare policy, 2) invest in identifying and implementing an alternative to the practice, and 3) explore egg-free alternatives for their products, particularly in the event that an alternative to maceration was not found.

As we’d hoped, following Unilever’s groundbreaking public statements against the killing of male chicks the rest of the world was quick to follow. In March 2015 the German government announced that it sought to end and ban the practice of culling male chicks by 2017. Following negotiations with The Humane League, in June 2016 the United Egg Producers, an industry trade group representing 95% of U.S. egg producers, pledged to end the process of culling male chicks by 2020 “or as soon as” the technology becomes “commercially available and economically feasible.” In October 2016 The Washington Post reported that Vital Farms, a popular egg company in the U.S. that follows industry-leading welfare practices, had pledged to adopt the technology.

By the end of 2016 there was an international race to develop viable technology to address what had to us always seemed a glaring and tractable welfare problem. Oh, and in February 2016 Unilever announced plans to launch a new egg-free, vegan mayo.

Farm Forward’s extensive experience leading high-level negotiations and advocacy campaigns remains a crucial part of global efforts to change the way our world eats and farms. We see opportunities where others see obstacles, and with your help we can continue to break new ground in the fight to end factory farming. These and future victories are not possible without your support.

In May 2014, Farm Forward identified a unique opportunity to apply pressure to a multinational corporation toward a first-of-its-kind victory for male breeding chicks within the egg industry. Deemed worthless by the egg industry, hundreds of millions of male chicks are killed each year in the US alone, where day-old chicks are typically ground up while fully conscious (the industry calls this practice maceration). While maceration is an industry-wide problem, Unilever, the third largest consumer goods company in the world, has been given high marks from the welfare community for improving animal welfare standards within its supply chain.

In June 2014, Farm Forward launched BuyingMayo.com and two accompanying viral videos to raise awareness about the practice of maceration by targeting Unilever’s Best Foods and Hellmann’s mayonnaise brands, which use hundreds of millions of eggs each year in the US alone. Visitors to BuyingMayo.com were asked to sign a petition requesting that Unilever develop an alternative to the practice of maceration within its supply chain.

In just two months, nearly half a million people watched our videos and more than ten thousand people signed our petition, and through Facebook and Twitter millions more were exposed to our messaging about the cruelty within the egg industry. Shortly after the campaign launched, Farm Forward entered negotiations with Unilever’s corporate affairs department, which requested that HSUS and Compassion in World Farming—which have praised Unilever’s animal welfare policies in the past—also join the discussion. Farm Forward offered to place a moratorium on our campaign if Unilever: 1) agreed that the routine practice of macerating day-old chicks did not conform to their animal welfare policy, 2) committed to investing in identifying and implementing an alternative to the practice, and 3) pledged to explore egg-free alternatives for their products, particularly in the event that an alternative to maceration was not found.

At the end of August, Unilever agreed to Farm Forward’s terms and updated their global website to reflect their new welfare policy. Unilever is now the only company in the world to have taken a stand against this industry-wide practice and is actively pursuing alternative technology for their entire supply chain.

We’re excited to welcome Villanova University to Farm Forward’s Leadership Circle. Villanova Dining Services has committed to source 100% of its eggs from sources that, at a minimum, meet Certified Humane (CH) cage-free standards. After conversations with our staff, Villanova started sourcing all of their shell eggs from a CH Pasture Raised egg supplier, Vital Farms. Villanova is the first university of its size to source all shell eggs from hens raised in certified pasture-based systems, a decision that raises the bar for institutional food procurement commitments across the country.

Pasture-raised eggs are a significant step up from cage-free eggs when it comes to animal welfare (and, research suggests, the nutritional profile of the end product1 as well). While cage-free eggs can still come from farms where birds never see the outdoors, pasture-raised hens spend most of their time outside, exhibiting natural behaviors (like foraging for bugs and insects) with plenty of space. Villanova’s support for a pasture-raised egg company may also have ripple effects for other food buyers: by convincing their food distributor to carry new pasture-raised egg products, Villanova is paving the way to making pasture-raised products available to other institutions and large buyers.

Villanova’s membership in the Leadership Circle aligns well with the university’s “VEG” program, which promotes healthy and sustainable eating. By offering delicious plant-forward menu options, the VEG program has led to an increase in produce purchases and has increased student satisfaction with on-campus dining. Joining the Leadership Circle and committing to purchase certified higher welfare eggs will help Villanova focus on sourcing “less and better” animal products.

Our team looks forward to working with Villanova and supporting other universities that wish to build a higher welfare, more sustainable food system through their food purchasing practices. Please reach out if you’d like to learn more, or are interested in joining our Leadership Circle program.

Due to demand from conscious consumers and pressure from organizations like Farm Forward and our allies, the food industry is changing. Blue Apron, the leading meal kit service, has announced an industry-leading animal welfare policy that has a strong focus on third-party animal welfare certification and public transparency. Blue Apron’s policy demonstrates the improvements to animal welfare possible in a large supply chain. Blue Apron’s changes will impact several million animals per year.

Farm Forward worked with Blue Apron’s supply chain team for more than two years to develop standards, source higher welfare animal products, and evaluate suppliers to confirm they could meet Blue Apron’s new standards. Our collaboration shows how food companies can work with animal welfare organizations to set forward-looking standards and push the envelope of what’s possible for farmed animal welfare.

Study1 after study2 shows that consumers care about how animals are treated. They are troubled, to say the least, by many of the practices of industrial animal production. Many companies have responded to consumer pressure over the last decade, especially the last five years, by eliminating some of their very worst animal welfare practices.

Most recently, in just the past year, dozens of companies—including Burger King, Starbucks, and Compass Group—have gone beyond eliminating their worst practices to improving their standard practices. Now Blue Apron, with Farm Forward’s support, has evaluated new possibilities for its beef and broiler chicken supply chains and committed to set an even higher standard.

Blue Apron’s Policy

Blue Apron’s animal welfare policy represents an important step forward in several respects:

• Meat from slower-growing chickens. Blue Apron has announced that more than 10 percent of the chicken in their meal kits is certified at GAP Step 4, which means that they are using slower-growing breeds raised with access to pasture. Blue Apron has also committed to source 100 percent of their chicken from slower-growing birds raised with environmental enrichments, more space, and improved slaughter by 2022.
• Eggs from pasture raised hens. 100 percent of Blue Apron’s eggs come from pasture-based farms verified by Certified Humane Pasture Raised, which requires that hens have continuous access to vegetated pasture. This is a tremendous improvement over cage-free, where most hens are raised in cramped conditions indoors.
• Beef from cattle raised entirely on pasture. By the end of 2019, 50 percent of the cows providing Blue Apron’s beef will be raised and finished on pasture.
• Commitment to verification and transparency. Blue Apron is the first U.S. company to commit to sell only those animal products that use Certified Humane or GAP animal welfare certifications, also by the end of 2019.

While most companies are raising the floor and eliminating the worst practices from their supply chains, Blue Apron is pushing the ceiling: setting a positive vision for a path forward that ensures meaningfully better conditions for all animals in their supply chain.

Learn more about our work to help institutions leverage their buying power to change the way animals are raised for food.

Farm Forward’s Leadership Circle champions a “less meat, better meat,” strategy for the schools, businesses, and other institutions that serve hundreds of millions of meals in the U.S. each year. Developed by Health Care Without Harm, the “less meat, better meat” framework can help institutions reduce their use of animal products overall (“less meat”), while at the same time sourcing the animal products they do serve from higher-welfare, more sustainable sources (“better meat”).

The Leadership Circle supports institutions sourcing “better meat” by connecting them with certified higher-welfare and environmentally sustainable farmers. By doing this, we help the growing network of certified higher-welfare farmers find markets for their products. For example, Farm Forward helped the University of Denver connect with and source Global Animal Partnership Step 5 chicken from Boulder Natural Meats. Although the Leadership Circle program only launched in October 2017, our “better meat” commitment has already improved the lives of more than three million animals raised for food.

Given these accomplishments, why focus on “less meat” as a critical component of the Leadership Circle’s approach? Part of the answer is economic: because animal products typically cost more than plant-based protein1, buying a lower volume of animal products allows institutions to save money. Those savings can be reinvested in better-quality animal products. Shifting dollars away from industrialized farms and toward higher-welfare farms supports small- and medium-sized family farms, which often struggle to compete in a market dominated by a handful of large agricultural companies. By shifting consumption to animal products raised by smaller, higher-welfare farms, we help build a sustainable farming movement that can be part of a solution to factory farms.

Reducing our consumption of animal products provides broader benefits for animal welfare, human health, and the planet. The U.S. raises over 9 billion animals for food each year2, and nearly 99 percent spend most or all of their lives confined in factory farms.3 Consuming fewer animal products usually translates to consuming fewer animals, which reduces overall animal suffering.4

Eating less meat and more plants is also recommended for better health and increased food security.5 Most American adults eat roughly twice the recommended amount of protein each day6 and consume more saturated fat and sodium—both present in conventional meat and poultry—than is optimal for health.7 Switching from a diet high in animal products to one featuring more plants is broadly recognized as better for human health.

Lastly, the high emissions of food animal production mean that reducing our consumption of animal products is critical if we are to limit the severe and irreversible consequences of climate change associated with a global temperature rise of  2° C or more.8

For animals, our health, and the stability of our planet, it is imperative that we eat less and better meat and other animal products. The effect of influencing meals eaten in institutions cannot be overestimated; more than 1/3 of every dollar we spend on food goes to foodservice establishments.9

Please support our efforts to reduce animal product consumption by donating to Farm Forward’s Leadership Circle program.