How much does the UK public understand about factory farming?

Seems unlikely because Most people strongly support animal rights quite dramatically

Interestingly there's a questionnaire developed by researcher on it: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09515089.2022.2056436

• Look to see if anyone's actually used this scale

Do some Google Trends stuff, see: People resist talking about factory farming

#High_Income_Countries/UK

• Pull in stuff from Bhattacharya, Bryant and Couture 2023
• Bryant found that only 41% of people know about male chick culling
• Check the raw data of: Acceptability of Farming Practices
• Check: https://europa.eu/eurobarometer/surveys/detail/2996
• See Summer survey
• https://veganfta.com/2021/08/24/85-of-the-british-public-want-an-immediate-ban-on-factory-farming/
• 2025 polling by HWA : half (53%) of respondents had not heard of farrowing crates before taking the survey, with a further 19% having heard of farrowing crates but not knowing “much, if anything about them”.
• 2022 polling by CIWF and YouGov 69% of British adults believe factory farming puts profits ahead of taking care of the climate and our environment. British adults believe factory farming puts profits ahead of animal welfare (81%) and the health of people who eat animal products (66%).
• VFC commissioned a survey of 5000 Brits in 2022 and found that less than 15 per cent of people knew that almost all chickens are factory farmed, while the majority of people thought that chickens were killed at 3-6 months old.
• YouGov, 2020:

US

• Rethink did some work (look into this): https://rethinkpriorities.org/research-area/us-support-for-action/

Worldwide

• Attitudes of Europeans towards animal welfare (2015) (Eurobarometer)
  • Check more Eurobarometer data here: https://europa.eu/eurobarometer/surveys/detail/2996
• 2022 polling by CIWF and YouGov in 13 countries: Brazil, Czechia, Egypt, France, India, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, New Zealand, South Africa, Spain, the US, and the UK.
  Adults in France were the most likely to agree that factory farming puts profits before climate and the environment (76%) and animal welfare (81%), the same proportion as the UK.
  Italians were also proportionately more likely to agree with these statements, believing factory farming put profits before animal welfare (77%) and the climate and environment (75%), as were those in the UK (climate and environment: 69%).
  Overall, those polled in Egypt, which is hosting this year’s COP27 conference, were the least likely to believe that factory farming puts profits before animal welfare (48%) and were one of the least likely to agree that it puts profits before the climate and environment (50%).
  Respondents were also asked if they think factory farming puts profits before the health of people who eat animal products – 62% agreed with this statement, and the country most likely to agree was France (74%).
• FourPaws, 2024: Globally (i.e. across all 12 markets), nearly two-thirds (65%) of adults are aware of animal cruelty issues in the fashion industry.
• YouGov 2020:
  • 62% don't know about routine poultry beak trimming
  • 47% don't know how often we separate of dairy calves from mothers, and 51% don't know how often we use calf at foot systems
  • The UK public broadly understands the scale of free range:
    • 20% think its a lot
    • 54% think a fair amount
    • 13% don't know
  • 46% don't know about live export
  • 78% don't know about CO2 stunning
  • 60% think we cage animals, 21% a lot and 39% a fair amount

Reading

• https://typeset.io/papers/public-opinion-on-uk-milk-marketing-and-dairy-cow-welfare-2n3k1z5lze
• https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10806-016-9615-x
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5126776/
• https://www.ciwf.org.uk/news/2023/07/public-unaware-of-factory-farming-health-risks
• https://yougov.co.uk/consumer/articles/32222-what-do-brits-think-uk-farming-practices

Rest of the world

• Most americans think that their animal products come from animals that are treated well
• https://mercyforanimals.org/blog/shocking-new-study-finds-public-knows-nothing/
• https://www.aspca.org/protecting-farm-animals/aspca-surveys
• When asked if they knew much about the industrial meat industry, 52% of Thais said they knew a bit and 8% said they knew a lot. There will be exaggeration here though.

Related

• People resist talking about factory farming
• Not UK data but relevant People don't realise how bad meat is for the climate