Governments must stop feeding factory farms

To national governments, policy-makers and business leaders,

Every single day, a staggering amount of food is lost but not to spoilage, not to supermarket bins, but to feeding factory-farmed animals. Food that could nourish people is instead fed to animals trapped in an inefficient and unsustainable system of industrial agriculture. Globally, a colossal 766 million tonnes of grain are wasted annually by being fed to animals in factory farms – more food than is wasted by households (631m tonnes), food service (290m tonnes) or retail (131m tonnes).

This is because vast amounts of edible crops like grain and soy do not feed people at all. Land that could produce nourishing food is locked into growing crops for industrially farmed animals at great cost to the planet, public health, and the lives of animals trapped in these systems.

Meanwhile, the public’s money in many highly industrialised countries helps fund the massive production of grain, not to feed people, but to feed animals in factory farms - a wasteful system that damages the planet and drains resources.

Industrial animal agriculture is viewed as efficient and necessary to tackle hunger and feed the growing world population. However, a new report by Compassion in World Farming International shows industrial animal agriculture is profoundly inefficient and, moreover, that it is undermining global food security.

The fact that a large proportion of global soy production is used as feed for farmed animals – and that this is a key driver of deforestation – is widely known. There is, however, much less awareness of the fact that globally each year around 1,000 million tons of grain – corn/maize, wheat, barley and oats – are fed to farmed animals. ⁱ Data from the International Grains Council show that 45% of the world’s grain is used as animal feed. ⁱⁱ

Why does this matter?

This matters because animals convert grain very inefficiently into meat and milk. ^{iii iv}

Research shows that:

• for every 100 calories of human-edible cereals fed to animals, just 3-25 calories (depending on the species) enter the human food chain as meat.
• for every 100 grams of protein in human-edible cereals fed to animals, just 5-40 grams of protein enter the human food chain as meat.

Our new report shows that in many countries much more food - indeed in the EU and US twice as much food - is wasted by using grain as animal feed, than is wasted in the conventional sense. The figures of waste in our report do not refer to the total amount of grain fed to animals; they are the amount that is wasted due to several plant-derived calories or grams of protein being needed to produce one calorie or one gram of protein in meat, milk and eggs.

This poor conversion rate by animals of human-edible grain into meat and milk means that industrial animal production does not build food security, it undermines it. It does not provide protein – it squanders this vital nutrient. Our report calculates that if the grain currently fed to animals were instead used for direct human consumption, we could globally feed an extra two billion people each year. More than the expected increase in world population between now and 2050.

Industrial animal agriculture’s huge demand for grain has been a key factor fuelling the intensification of crop production. This, with its use of monocultures and agro-chemicals, has led to soil degradation, ^{v vi} biodiversity loss, ^vii overuse and pollution of water, ^viii and air pollution. ^ix In short, industrial animal agriculture undermines the key resources on which long-term productive farming depends.

Phasing out the use of grain as feed would free up large amounts of arable land that could be used to grow crops for direct human consumption – for example, fruit, vegetables, legumes, pulses such as peas and beans, nuts and seeds, all of which contribute to a diverse, healthy, nutritious diet.

How should animals be fed?

Animals only make an efficient contribution to food security when they are converting materials we cannot consume into food that we can eat. ^{x xi} So, animals should mainly be fed on:

• pasture or other grassland
• by-products, e.g. brewers grains, citrus pulp, sunflower meal
• unavoidable food waste, e.g. unwanted bakery products, fruit and vegetables
• crop residues.

That is why we are calling for a Food Not Feed Plan with feed reduction at its core. By cutting the use of food crops for factory farms, we can free up resources, including public funds currently propping up unsustainable systems, to put more healthy and affordable food on people’s plates and support farming systems that give animals good lives. By means of:

1. Establishing a clear plan to reduce reliance on grain and soy as animal feed.
2. Ensuring that productive farmland is used to grow food for people, not feed for animals.
3. Phasing out public subsidies that support the production of grain and soy as feed crops.
4. Raising public awareness of how food is lost through industrial animal agriculture.
5. Reforming public food purchasing so that schools, hospitals and care institutions play a leading role in the shift toward sustainable, plant-rich diets and more responsible sourcing.
6. Encouraging the adoption of plant-rich, flexitarian diets by setting targets to reduce animal-sourced food consumption in high-consuming populations, aligned with climate, biodiversity, and sustainability goals.
7. Requiring public and commercial banks, investment funds, and multilateral institutions to stop funding factory farming industrial livestock production.

By adopting these policies, you can help build a fairer, more sustainable food system; one that prioritises feeding people over fueling unsustainable factory farming.

References:

.i & .ii International Grains Council, 2025. https://www.igc.int/en/markets/marketinfo-sd.aspx Accessed 13 August 2025

.iii & .iv Cassidy et al, 2013. Redefining agricultural yields: from tonnes to people nourished per hectare. University of Minnesota. Environ. Res. Lett. 8 (2013) 034015

.v Edmondson et al, 2014. Urban cultivation in allotments maintains soil qualities adversely affected by conventional agriculture. Journal of Applied Ecology 2014, 51, 880–889.

.vi Tsiafouli et al., 2015. Intensive agriculture reduces soil biodiversity across Europe. Global Change Biology: 21, p973–985.

.vii World Health Organization and Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity. 2015. Connecting global priorities: biodiversity and human health.

.viii Mekonnen M and Hoekstra A, 2012. A global assessment of the water footprint of farm animal products. Ecosystems.: DOI: 10.1007/s10021-011-9517-8.

.ix Lelieveld et al, 2015. The contribution of outdoor air pollution sources to premature mortality on a global scale. Nature, Vol 525.

.x Schader, C, Muller, A, Scialabba, NE-H, Hecht, J, Isensee, A, Erb, K-H, Smith, P, Harinder, PSM, Klock, P, Leiber, F, Schwegler, P, Stolze, M, Niggle, U, . Impacts of feeding less food-competing feedstuffs to livestock on global food system sustainability (2015). J. R. Soc. Interface 12: 20150891. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2015.0891

.xi Bajželj, B, Richards, KS, Allwood, JM, Smith, P, Dennis, JS, Curmi, E, Gilligan, CA, Importance of food-demand management for climate mitigation (2014). Nature Climate Change http://www.nature.com/doifinder/10.1038/nclimate2353