Stopping Factory Farm Finance • Friends of the Earth

Stopping Factory Farm Finance

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Across the globe, industrial livestock operations are a major cause of greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation and land grabbing, biodiversity loss, water depletion and air and water contamination. These negative impacts disproportionately affect women, Indigenous peoples and low-income communities of color. Intensive livestock production also causes tremendous animal suffering and increases the risk of antibiotic resistance and new pandemics. 

Despite all this, public development banks (PDBs) including the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and International Finance Corporation (IFC) are using tax dollars to prop up and expand giant meat and dairy companies like Minerva and Smithfield Foods. During the last 10 years alone, the top five development banks poured $4.5 billion into industrial livestock companies in countries such as Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico, China, Vietnam, Madagascar and Kenya, all under the guise of “sustainable development.” In reality, financing industrial-scale meat and dairy operations directly contradicts PDBs’ commitments to advance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and align their lending with the Paris Climate Agreement. 

In late 2021, Friends of the Earth joined together with organizations across the globe to form the Stop Financing Factory Farming (SFFF) campaign. Our mission is simple: bring an end to public financing of cruel and environmentally and socially destructive  industrial livestock operations. During the last year, the SFFF campaign has engaged public development banks on loans to the following industrial operations: Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC, animal feed), Marfrig (beef), Mavin (pigs), and Pronaca (pigs and poultry).

stop factory farm financing climate march

As we continue to fight against public financing for specific climate-wrecking animal agribusiness projects, our long term goal is to secure Development Finance Institution (DFI)  policies that will exclude financing of industrial livestock operations from their portfolios. To join our efforts and learn more about our campaign, please contact us and check out the resources below.

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Latest News See All
Groups Oppose Use of Inflation Reduction Act Funding for Polluting Factory Farms

Today, nearly 200 groups sent a letter to Secretary Tom Vilsack urging the agency to reconsider its recent decision to include several “conservation practices” that support factory farms and the proliferation of factory farm gas to its list of Climate-Smart Agriculture and Forestry practices that will be prioritized under the…

Stop Financing Factory Farming Coalition Reacts to World Bank’s Climate Commitment

If the World Bank intends for its operations to match its new mission, the Bank must end support for industrial livestock production. 

New Report Documents Social and Environmental Harms of PRONACA’s Animal Agriculture Operations on Indigenous Communities

Loans from IDB Invest and IFC to PRONACA, the country’s largest pig and poultry producer, have violated the banks' own policies.

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Impact Stories See All
Protecting the Amazon from Rampant Deforestation
Protecting the Amazon from Rampant Deforestation

Studies suggest that cattle ranching and animal feed production is currently responsible for 80% of deforestation across the Latin America and Caribbean region.

Latest Blog Posts See All
Multilateral banks’ investments in industrial livestock undermine their Paris climate commitments
Multilateral banks’ investments in industrial livestock undermine their Paris climate commitments

As world leaders meet tomorrow in Paris to discuss the role of public finance in addressing “climate change and the global crisis”, delegates should press multilateral development banks (MDBs) to invest in line with the Paris Agreement

The campaign to end public financing of industrial livestock operations
The campaign to end public financing of industrial livestock operations

Our goal in engaging IFC is to encourage the bank to shift its agricultural lending toward diversified and climate-resilient food systems.

Resources See All
  • Stop Factory Farm Financing Coalition Annual Report 2023
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  • Concerns on Project Number 46415
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  • Climate Misalignment
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