There’s a kinder world for farmed animals—and we’re creating it now.
There’s a kinder world for farmed animals—and we’re creating it now.
Coming up against a cruel and powerful behemoth like the factory farming industry can sometimes seem like an exercise in despair.
But it’s important to celebrate the wins—and the great news is, there are a lot of them. Growing consciousness about animal welfare, a push to fight back against the climate disaster threatening our planet, and innovative new technologies are all playing their part in fighting factory farming. And that’s just to start…
Over the last decades, animal welfare advocates have made some tremendous strides—and had some incredible wins. The Open Wing Alliance, a global coalition of animal protection groups, found that 89% of companies who signed its pledge to treat laying hens more humanely successfully eliminated cages by their 2023 deadlines or earlier. Other enormous companies, like Hilton, Wagamama, and more, are also now actively working toward eliminating cages from their global supply chains and reporting their progress.
As a result of this animal welfare advocacy, massive corporations have realized they need to take action. 95% of global food giants acknowledge the importance of animal welfare in their policy commitments. Some of those corporations are making huge steps, like Barilla, Lindt & Sprungli, and Danone (which exclusively source cage-free eggs). Others may be speaking more performatively, but animal advocates like us will continue to pressure them to put their money where their mouth is!
In 2021, the European Commission promised to ban caged animal farming by the end of 2023—but it failed to do so, mostly because of the pressure of factory farming corporations. Despite that, European activists are working to keep the EU’s promises to animals. The End the Cage Age Citizens’ Committee is suing the EU, backed by massive global companies like Nestle, Unilever, and Aldi, and sending a clear message that factory farm lobbying will not stop animal advocates from seeing critical promises fulfilled. In the US, Colorado and Michigan's laws banning the production and sale of eggs from caged hens went into effect on the first day of 2025.
One of the most powerful ways to reduce meat consumption is to show people where it comes from. Research has shown that showing people the typical conditions of factory farms can effectively reduce individual meat consumption. And with the growing number of material, channels, and technology able to bring awareness about the horrors of factory farming to the world, we can hope to see more public action against the industry.
Polls have found that 49% of people in the U.S. would support a ban on factory farms and 47% would support a ban on slaughterhouses, while another poll found that the majority of American voters support greater oversight of industrial animal farms. And though support is difficult and prone to change according to political machinations, it’s an incredible starting point, showing that people don’t have to be vegetarian or vegan to support animal rights.
A new study found that while the amount of meat most households eat has increased, so too has the amount of households that avoid meat altogether. Researchers analyzed the grocery receipts of tens of thousands of households from 2005 to 2020 for a real insight into American eating habits. The mix of more meat and more meat-avoiding households in the result aligns with other research, like the 2023 revelation that 12% of Americans eat half the nation’s beef. This isn’t wholly good news, but it offers new avenues to grow and push animal advocacy, particularly with the option of breaking through to new households.
The reason we’re winning this fight? People like you, who show up, speak for animal welfare, and push back against the power of factory farming. Let’s make this another banner year for animal rights.
Mikaella McInerney
