Factory farming

Most of the world's farm animals currently live miserable and shortened lives raised using 'production line' methods under factory conditions. By subjecting the animals to intense and prolonged suffering the farmers achieve their desired ‘high output’.

The animals live short, barren lives in cages and crates, overcrowded sheds and narrow stalls. They don’t even have the guarantee of a humane death.

WSPA is working to end factory farming worldwide. We are raising awareness, establishing local coalitions, and promoting and demonstrating humane alternatives.

Dairy farming in the UK

Free range dairy cow and calf
© WSPA

The UK has broadly high welfare standards in the UK, as well as strong consumer awareness regarding eggs and meat. As a nation of animal lovers, free range eggs are an everyday item and shoppers by and large try to buy ethical and high welfare meat products.
However, milk and dairy products are less well understood and our dairy industry as we know it is under threat to intensify production. Given our nation’s approach to other animal-based foodstuffs, WSPA feels this is a massive step backwards and is campaigning against the spread of US-style industrial farming in the UK.

Farm animals suffering in cages

Crammed together in conditions that prohibit natural behaviour, factory-farmed animals are prevented from eating, exercising or forming relationships as they are meant to. In some cases, they are even forced to live without daylight.
These poor conditions often cause animals to become seriously ill. To keep them alive long enough to produce food, antibiotics are used.
In addition to the dreadful living conditions, factory farms are characterised by forced growth rates, which cause terrible suffering.

Case study: Animal welfare standards in factory farms

Dairy cows in factory farms spend the vast majority of their brief lives indoors, housed in cubicles, with little if any grazing. These systems largely have milking parlours that run around the clock, cows milked a gruelling three times a day and intensive feeding regimes designed to maximise their milk yield. Cows farmed in this way are more likely than their pasture-based cousins to be lame and suffer debilitating mastitis. Antibiotics, stress, fear and aggression are common features of their lives. And the enormous pressure on their metabolism means they are finished – no longer economic to keep – at a very early age. To find out more, take a look inside the factory farms >>

The alternative to factory farms

WSPA is campaigning for sustainable farming systems. These are kinder to animals and the environment, they benefit human health and they reduce poverty.
As well as the UK, we are working in Latin America and Asia, where factory farming is rapidly expanding. Humane farming can be cost-effective and create a sustainable and secure food supply.
WSPA are working to establish a similar coalition in Latin America.

Help end factory farming: take action now!

Help end factory farming by eating better, safer and kinder.

Your donation will support WSPA’s campaign to stop factory farming and it will help put an end to the shocking cruelty suffered by billions of animals worldwide.