We joined our allies in the Stop Financing Factory Farms (S3F) coalition outside of the World Bank’s spring meetings in Washington, DC.
You may know of the World Bank and associate its name with projects in countries and communities around the globe that foster economic growth and seek to bring people out of poverty. What you may not know, though, is the Bank invests billions in so-called development projects that include building industrial farmed animal facilities—also called factory farms or concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs).
Between 2017 and 2023, the World Bank poured $3.5 billion into the expansion of industrial animal agriculture via its private finance arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), in countries in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Rather than helping to feed the world and promote livelihoods as World Bank loans are intended, this money is driving climate change and biodiversity loss, polluting local air and water, threatening small farmers, undermining food sovereignty, and increasing animal suffering.
The Stop Financing Factory Farming (S3F) campaign is demanding that development banks stop using public money to finance the largest meat companies in the world. We partnered with WeMove to generate 175,000+ citizen signatures and 260+ NGO signatories which we delivered to World Bank President, Ajay Banga, on April 19.
Development banks exist to support sustainable development and food security, not factory farming giants.
Factory farming is driving climate change and deforestation, as well as polluting our air, land, and water. Farmed animal production is responsible for roughly 15 percent of global greenhouse emissions and is a leading cause of biodiversity loss via deforestation and chemical spraying connected to animal feed crops. It also exploits land for feed crops that should be used to grow food for human consumption.
Additionally, factory farming is one of the largest sources of animal cruelty and suffering today. According to Our World in Data, about 75 percent of farmed land animals are factory-farmed—as high as 95 percent in the US—and roughly 70 billion chickens alone are slaughtered per year. These animals are kept in small cages or overcrowded, stressful spaces their entire lives, unable to engage in their most basic natural behaviors. They suffer painful mutilations, face excruciating boredom, and never see the sun.
Sign our pledge supporting a ban on factory farming in the US and help us end this cruelty. Forever.