2025 Factory Farming Round-Up: Momentum Grows Against the Industry, but Big Challenges Remain for 2026
2025 has been nothing short of a momentous year in the fight against factory farming, with pressure intensifying from every direction. A broad coalition of communities, campaigners, investors, scientists and high‑profile voices has challenged factory farming’s damage to nature, animals and public health more forcefully than ever. As 2026 approaches, it's worth taking stock of the year’s key breakthroughs and challenges in reshaping the future of food.
Read on for some of the key headlines.
Some Promising Moments
Development Banks Slash Factory Farm Lending by Half in 2024
In a landmark shift, major development banks reduced their financing for industrial livestock projects by around 50 percent in 2024, reflecting mounting concern over the climate, nature and social risks of factory farming. This pivot sends a strong signal to agribusiness and policymakers that intensive animal agriculture is becoming a financially and politically exposed model rather than a safe long‑term bet.
Barclays and JBS Face Legal Challenge Over Greenwashing
Mighty Earth launched legal action accusing Barclays and meat giant JBS of misleading the public with climate‑friendly branding while financing and operating highly polluting meat supply chains. By testing alleged greenwashing in court, the case raises the stakes for banks and agribusinesses that use sustainability rhetoric to gloss over the impacts of factory farming on forests and the climate.
Rutger Bregman Rallies Against Factory Farming in Moral Ambition
Throughout the year, including in his bestselling book Moral Ambition, Rutger Bregman has strongly challenged factory farming as ‘the greatest moral atrocity of our time’, urging professionals to direct their careers toward dismantling such systems. His framing helps move opposition to industrial animal agriculture from a niche ethical concern to a mainstream movement with thousands of engaged readers.
Over 1,000 People Object to Lincolnshire Intensive Chicken Farm Plan
A proposal for a large‑scale chicken facility in Lincolnshire triggered more than 1,000 formal objections from people across the UK, centred on animal welfare, odour and pollution concerns. The level of mobilisation shows how local residents are increasingly using planning processes to resist the spread of factory farms into rural communities. It also shows the effectiveness of organisations like Communities Against Factory Farming in mobilising concerned citizens against the industry.
Debate Intensifies Over Development Banks Backing Factory Farms in Africa
New analysis of livestock projects in parts of Africa criticised public development banks for promoting intensive poultry and pig systems as “modernisation” despite their climate and social impacts. The pushback from researchers and advocates is raising pressure on lenders to redirect finance away from factory farming and toward more sustainable food systems.
Cranswick’s Share Price Drops After Abuse Footage Prompts Supermarket Suspensions
Undercover video of animal abuse at a farm linked to Cranswick led major supermarkets to suspend supplies, triggering a sharp fall in the meat processor’s share price. The incident shows in real time how welfare scandals in factory farming can rapidly convert into reputational damage and financial losses for listed companies.
Some Unsettling Moments
JBS Wins New York Stock Exchange Listing Despite ESG Warnings
Meat giant JBS secured a listing on the New York Stock Exchange, even as NGOs warned investors about the company’s links to deforestation, emissions and social harms. The listing underscores how capital markets continue to reward scale in industrial animal agriculture despite growing climate and human‑rights concerns.
World Bank Found to Break Its Own Climate Rules on Animal Agriculture Loans
A new analysis concluded that the World Bank failed to meet its own climate and environmental safeguards on around 2 billion dollars of lending tied to animal agriculture, including intensive livestock projects. The findings expose a gap between the bank’s climate commitments and the reality of its portfolio, especially where factory farming is involved.
Taxpayer Subsidies Continue to Underwrite Environmentally Disastrous Factory Farms
A recent briefing showed that public funds are still flowing to intensive livestock and feed production, effectively subsidising animal suffering, deforestation and high greenhouse gas emissions. By propping up factory farming with taxpayer money, current subsidy regimes delay the shift toward higher‑welfare, lower‑impact and more plant‑rich food systems.
Iowa’s Factory Farms Produce 110 Billion Pounds of Untracked Manure Each Year
Investigative reporting revealed that concentrated animal feeding operations in Iowa generate an estimated 110 billion pounds of manure annually, with no comprehensive tracking of where the waste ends up. This oversight leaves communities exposed to contaminated water and polluted air while industrial operators benefit from weak oversight of their waste streams.
Some Very Useful Research for Factory Farm Finance Advocacy
FAIRR Analysis Warns Banks About Material Risks from Industrial Livestock Exposure
A recent FAIRR report highlighted that banks and investors heavily exposed to industrial animal agriculture face mounting transition, legal and reputational risks. The analysis positions reducing factory farm financing as core to prudent risk management and climate strategy, rather than a niche ethical concern.
“Roasting the Planet” Report Shows Big Meat and Dairy Outpacing Fossil Giants on Methane
New research on supply‑chain emissions found that the combined methane footprint of some of the world’s largest meat and dairy companies exceeds that of the top fossil fuel producers. The findings make clear that meeting global climate targets is impossible without rapidly transforming high‑emissions livestock systems and the finance that supports them.
Large Majority of Americans Oppose Standard Factory Farm Practices
Fresh polling suggests that more than 71 percent of Americans reject common factory farming practices such as extreme confinement and routine mutilations. This mounting public opposition weakens the social licence of intensive livestock systems and opens the door to stronger welfare laws and corporate reforms.
Global Health Study Links Factory Farming to Loss of 1.8 Healthy Years of Life Per Person
A new global assessment estimated that, when pollution, antibiotic resistance, water contamination and diet‑related disease are combined, factory farming costs the average person 1.8 years of healthy life. Treating industrial animal agriculture as a major public health driver, not just an environmental issue, could transform how governments and health systems regulate the sector.
Looking Ahead
These stories show a factory farming model that is starting to wobble under the weight of public outrage, legal challenges, investor concern and hard scientific evidence. The task for 2026 is to turn this momentum into concrete wins: tighter regulation, smarter public finance, bolder corporate commitments and a rapid shift towards plant‑rich, high‑welfare food systems that work for people, animals and the planet alike.
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