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The Hidden Harms of Factory Farms (Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation)

#Economics/jobs #pigs

This report contains an executive summary, which is reproduced below as requested.

Executive Summary

Livestock farming in the United Kingdom is very different from a few short decades ago. Today, most livestock are consolidated into large factory farms, which have replaced small family farms, especially for pigs and poultry. Although the rise of the factory farm was supposed to make meat cheaper for consumers, it has instead imposed significant costs on society.

This report quantifies the hidden costs of pig and poultry factory farms to the British taxpayer – using publicly-available UK Government data, as well as an original survey of 1,000 UK residents.

We estimate the total amount of the costs to be over £1.2 billion annually. This includes:

  1. Subsidies: We estimate 85% of subsidies that go to chicken and pig farmers are consumed by factory farms, amounting to £269M a year.
  2. Environmental Pollution: The cost of air and water pollution from factory farms is estimated to be £518M.
  3. Public Health Problems: The cost of increased respiratory deaths attributable to living near large factory farms is estimated at £92M.
  4. Lost Farming Jobs: We estimate that factory farms have destroyed 14,000 farming jobs with annual salaries not paid valued at £333M.

Furthermore, we find little evidence that factory farms make products significantly cheaper, nor that they increase food security. On the contrary, there is no clear pattern of more industrialised animal products getting cheaper than less industrialised products. Moreover, the vast amount of feed that livestock require means that increasing UK meat production means we import more food – not less.

Factory farms have failed to make our food cheaper, failed to improve our food security, soaked up taxpayer money through subsidies, imposed significant costs to the environment and public health, and destroyed thousands of farming jobs.

Policymakers must consider the impact of the £1.2 billion we pay in hidden costs, and restructure incentives to move us towards a more sustainable food production system that benefits all stakeholders, including consumers, farmers, and local communities. In particular, mandatory labels on factory-farmed products should be introduced without delay.