Industry

Explainer

The Truth About Duck Farming: What Happens Behind Closed Doors

On large-scale duck farms, thousands of ducks are crammed together with no access to water. The rest of their lives is increasingly unnatural.

Food•11 min read

Reported

Inside the Dramatic Rise of Factory Farming in Africa

While factory farming is most prevalent in the Global North, it is gaining political support in Africa, and animals are paying the price.

Food•6 min read

Explainer

How Power and Influence Corrupts Big Food Companies

Big Food is characterized by the domination of major food markets by a few large companies. In the food industry, the lack of competition leads to a host of problems.

Food•12 min read

Explainer

What Life Is Like for America’s 10 Million Dairy Cows

Dairy cows are kind, emotional, and social creatures. However, the dairy industry sees them as nothing more than sources of milk.

Food•12 min read

Reported

How ‘Landless’ Pig Farms Break Animal Welfare Rules and Get Away With It

The rise of intensive animal agriculture in the EU has created a new phenomenon: the landless farm. Exempt from key welfare protections, these farms pose a serious threat to farmed…

Food•5 min read

Reported

Emails Show Meat CEOs Lobbied Federal Officials During Pandemic

The leaders of pork company Smithfield Foods and chicken producer Perdue Farms were in regular contact with government officials as the coronavirus began sweeping through their plants.

Food•7 min read

Reported

The Firms Keeping Big Ag in Business

Between 2015 and 2020, financial institutions gave over $478 billion to meat and dairy corporations around the world, largely without scrutiny.

Food•5 min read

Perspective

A Shortage of Butchers Is the Least of the Pork Industry’s Problems

A shortage of butchers in the UK has left slaughterhouses operating at decreased capacity, forcing many farmers to kill their pigs themselves.

Food•5 min read

Explainer

Mega Farms Called CAFOs Dominate Animal Agriculture Industry

CAFOs are industrial facilities where thousands of farmed animals are densely packed in sheds and feedlots. They're one of the best examples of how broken our food systems really are.

Food•10 min read

Investigation

Major Animal Pharma Industry Group Forced to Remove UN Logo from ‘Misleading’ Briefing on Livestock Climate Impact

United Nations distances itself from “distortive” and “biased” animal pharma livestock briefing that used UN sustainable food summit logo.

Food•10 min read

Explainer

What’s Really in a Chicken Nugget?

Chicken nuggets are a staple of fast food chains and grocery store freezers, but there's more to the simple nuggets than meets the eye.

Food•10 min read

Explainer

Pig Farmers Know Best: Even Cheap Meat Comes With a Price

Over the past 50 years, mega-corporations have placed a firm hold on the pork industry, leaving many pig farmers in financial ruin.

Food•1 min read

Explainer

Factory Farming: What the Industry Doesn’t Want You to Know

Because of factory farming, people can eat low-cost fish, chicken, beef, pork, and other animal-based foods, but at the expense of the environment, animal welfare, and marginalized peoples.

Food•17 min read

Reported

Farmers Caught in the Gears of Agricultural Industry

Farming was a sustainable way of life until corporate agriculture came knocking. Now, farmers are caught in the gears of an industry that prioritizes cheap crops and labor above all…

Food•18 min read

Explainer

Dairy Farmers Find Themselves at the Center of a Troubled Industry

Dairy farmers work long hours in dangerous conditions, while animals are constantly impregnated and then separated from their young.

Food•10 min read

Reported

What Happens When Big Ag Comes to Town

Big Ag didn't just put small farmers out of business. They changed a way of life in rural America and made it harder to fight climate change.

Food•20 min read

Reported

Expansion of Cattle Farms Leads to Rise of Armed Conflict in Colombia

A special investigation into the expansion of cattle farming in Colombia has found a connection between illegal deforestation and the rise of armed conflict in the region.

Food•5 min read

Explainer

Inside the Dark World of Rabbit Farming

Rabbit is often celebrated as the "most sustainable" meat, but it emits more carbon per kilogram than both chicken and pork and causes millions of animals to suffer.

Food•6 min read

Explainer

U.S. Department of Agriculture: Who Does the USDA Really Serve?

Since its inception in 1861, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's primary function was to serve the interests of farmers, often at the expense of public health and the environment.

Food•9 min read

Perspective

Is Ethically Produced Dairy Even Possible?

At the UK's only slaughter-free dairy farm, calves are allowed to be with their mothers, and spent cows roam around in peace. Sound too good to be true? We took…

Food•5 min read

Reported

Farmers Face Frostbitten Cows, Dead Calves, and Harsh Financial Consequences

Over the last few weeks, severe winter storms have pelted the U.S. agriculture industry with problems, killing hundreds of thousands of animals.

Food•4 min read

Reported

Factory Farming Is on the Rise, but Communities Are Fighting Back

In the absence of political leadership, grassroots organizations and NGOs are taking on factory farms themselves, building on growing public support for less intensive animal agriculture.

Food•8 min read

Perspective

“I Remember Their Eyelashes”: Why I Chose to Stop Consuming Dairy

The ditch dairy argument can be a tough pill to swallow. This is not meant to shame anyone, simply to share my story of why I chose to stop consuming…

Food•9 min read

Reported

The Rise of an Empire: How China Achieved Global Fishing Dominance

With as many as 800,000 boats in the water, some as far afield as Argentina, China is unmatched in the size and reach of its fishing vessels. Ian Urbina reports…

Food•13 min read

Explainer

McDonald’s Animal Cruelty: Secrets of the Fast Food Industry

McDonald's animal cruelty record is far from perfect. The company has been under fire after multiple investigations exposed cruelty at its chicken suppliers.

Food•6 min read

Explainer

Live Animal Export: How Many Animals Die During Transport?

Live animal export is one of the single greatest threats to animal welfare. Every year, billions of animals are crammed into cargo holds, and many don't make it out alive.

Food•8 min read

Perspective

This $22-Billion Industry Suffers from a Serious Lack of Oversight

The live animal trade is thriving. Every day, millions of farmed animals are shipped around the world, panic-stricken and disoriented on their way to slaughter.

Food•4 min read

Reported

Activists Target Smithfield Foods—The World’s Largest Pork Producer

By rescuing animals from captivity and documenting slaughterhouse facilities, activists aim to disrupt oppressive institutions—like factory farms—that harm both human and nonhuman animals and the planet.

Food•5 min read

Perspective

Will Development Banks Finally Agree to Divest from Factory Farms?

To address the climate crisis, biodiversity loss, and the ongoing threat of zoonotic disease, advocates must turn their calls for divestment to the factory farming industry.

Food•4 min read

Analysis

Would Slower Growth Make Life Better for Farmed Chickens?

Animal advocates criticize the painful effects of rapid growth in chickens. But poultry producers often draw attention away from the issue, touting new innovations in their breeding methods and general…

Food•5 min read

Explainer

Outgrowing the Chicken House: A Brief History of the Modern Broiler Industry

Today, corporate agriculture raises broiler chickens by the billions, producing birds that have not only outgrown their own bodies but are capable of outgrowing the industry itself.

Food•9 min read

Analysis

Bringing Big Ag’s Right to Harm to the U.S. Supreme Court

Two couples in rural Indiana worked for decades to build the American dream—and then watched it slip away to a massive pig farm. They refuse to give up.

Food•11 min read

Reported

“A Huge Lack of Transparency”: The Problem With USDA’s $19-Billion Coronavirus Relief Program

Millions of farmed animals are being killed as the industry receives billions in COVID-19 federal aid. Advocates want to know where the money is going.

Food•9 min read

Perspective

Leather: Cruel, Not Cool

Leather production poses a triple threat—it inflicts unimaginable cruelty on animals, harms and kills tannery workers, and destroys vital ecosystems.

Food•6 min read

Perspective

Let’s Forge a New Normal for Farmed Animals

Millions of farmed animals were needlessly put to death during the pandemic. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Food•8 min read

Perspective

Gassed, Shot, and Suffocated: How Meat Companies Are Killing Farmed Animals During COVID-19

When slaughterhouses shut down, producers had nowhere to send their animals. As a result, tens of millions of animals were killed and disposed of, posing a serious threat to humans…

Food•4 min read

Perspective

Tyson Foods Kills 2.4 Billion Animals Every Year. Can It Do Good, Too?

As a leading meat producer, Tyson has the potential to do much harm but also much good. It could annually end the exploitation of billions of animals by expanding its…

Food•6 min read

Perspective

Pork Industry’s COVID-19 Response Demonstrates Innate Brutality of Factory Farming

The culling of pigs during COVID-19 hardly compares in scale to the misery of the 75 million pigs currently held on U.S. factory farms, or the anguish of the more…

Food•5 min read

Perspective

COVID-19 Revealing Inherent Cruelty of Agribusiness

During the coronavirus crisis, agribusiness’s callous treatment of its workers and blatant disregard for animal welfare has reached a new low.

Food•4 min read

Perspective

Marketing Masculinity: The Meat of the Matter

The connection between meat consumption and masculinity is not new. What is new is the increasing influence of prominent vegan men who speak up about the benefits of their diets.

Food•7 min read

Perspective

Suffocating Healthy Farmed Animals During Pandemic Is Not “Euthanasia”

Using the term “euthanasia,” which literally means "a good death," to describe the mass killing of overpopulated farmed animals is a misnomer. They suffer horrific deaths.

Food•4 min read

Reported

PETA Buys Shares In Slaughterhouses

PETA plans to use its shareholder position to influence Tyson, Smithfield, and others to switch to packing only plant-based meats.

Food•2 min read

Explainer

Farmed Animals: The Exploitation of Animals on Factory Farms

Farmed animals represent an ever-growing number of animals that are raised, exploited, and slaughtered for fashion and food. These are animals who have few rights and zero freedom.

Food•23 min read

Reported

Farmed Animals Culled En Masse as COVID-19 Outbreaks Halt Meat and Dairy Production

With COVID-19 closures impacting meat and dairy supply chains, the industry faces a choice: stay open and risk the lives of its employees, or shut down and force farmers to…

Food•3 min read

Reported

Family Farms and the Rise of Industrial Agriculture

Industrial farming practices are making it increasingly more difficult for independent farmers to sustain on their own.

Food•8 min read

Reported

Dairy Industry Spends Millions on “Education Programs” for Children

In Australia, children as young as age five—who are naturally inclined to love and care about animals—are being "educated" by the dairy industry.

Food•8 min read

Reported

Big Ag Has Almost Every Advantage. Animal Outlook Is Taking It Back.

Animal Outlook, formerly Compassion Over Killing, has revolutionized animal cruelty investigations, going deep undercover to bring the truth to light.

Food•6 min read

Reported

The USDA Is Gutting Pig Slaughterhouse Rules. These Groups Are Fighting Back.

Pig slaughterhouses are now allowed to operate slaughter lines at any speed they choose. But how can an industry responsible for so much suffering be expected to regulate itself?

Food•4 min read

Reported

Cooked Alive: Transport Animals Face Deadliest Temperatures Yet

Heat waves aren’t just a people problem. When food, water, shade, and safe transport are scarce, farm animals are often the first ones to suffer.

Food•8 min read

Perspective

Hypocrisy on the Highway: Where Are Those Animal Transport Trucks Heading and Why Don’t We Talk About It?

Most people consider themselves animal lovers and take any opportunity to admire them, including as they pass by in transport trucks on the highway. Not many people, though, question where…

Food•8 min read