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The Guardian - Back to homeThe Guardian

Animals farmed

This series looks at how the animals that feed us live, and how the business of feeding us works. What happens to animals in the factory farming system? And what does it mean for the planet?

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  • Food and Agriculture Organization logo on board with blurred people moving in front of it

    ‘The anti-livestock people are a pest’: how UN food body played down role of farming in climate change

    Ex-officials at the Food and Agriculture Organization say its leadership censored and undermined them when they highlighted how livestock methane is a major greenhouse gas
  • herd of cows

    Ex-officials at UN farming body say work on methane emissions was censored

  • An aerial view shows deforestation near a forest on the border between Amazonia and Cerrado in Nova Xavantina, Mato Grosso state, Brazil

    Top grain traders ‘helped scupper’ ban on soya from deforested land

  • Pig culling at a farm in Lombardy, northern Italy, last week.

    Italy culls tens of thousands of pigs to contain African swine fever

  • Free range laying hens on a farm in Shropshire, England

    Human gene identified that prevents most bird flu viruses moving to people

  • Wim Brouwer on his farm

    Farmers on frontline as Dutch divided by war on nitrogen pollution

Loads more stories and moves focus to first new story.

The search for solutions

  • An empty mink farm.

    Ghost farms
    The mink sheds abandoned to the pandemic

  • A lorry next to a statue of a chicken.

    Bird flu
    US farms lobby to use ‘cruellest’ killing method as bird flu rages

  • Pigs rooting around in a muddy field next to Schiphol’s runways

    Pig patrol
    Amsterdam airport’s innovative approach to flight safety

  • Joe Halstead, managing director of AgriGrub

    Bugs to the rescue
    Using insects as animal feed could cut deforestation – report

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Explore

  • Dead fish

    ‘Toilet of Europe’
    Spain’s pig farms blamed for mass fish die-offs

  • A pig looks out from its enclosure

    African swine fever
    The US has a silent pig pandemic on its doorstep once again

  • A sow looks out from a farrowing crate in which she cannot turn around. Her piglets have just had their tails cut off and the males have been castrated, in Italy.

    Saving the bacon
    Will British pig farmers ​survive a ban on cages?

  • A USDA inspector checks a Thanksgiving turkey in a processing plant.

    Salmonella
    The food poisoning killer that won’t go away in the US

Loads more stories and moves focus to first new story.

About this project

  • A milkmaid works on Tuesday, July 29, 2008 in the milking parlor of the Agricultural Cooperative Golzow near Brandenburg an der Havel to one of the dairy's 600 dairy cows. Every day she milks 300 cows. Federal Agriculture Minister Horst Seehofer wanted to meet on Tuesday with representatives of farmers' associations to a milk summit to settle the price dispute. The farmers want to enforce higher prices. (AP Photo / Sven Kaestner) -

    Animals farmed: welcome to our series

    What happens to animals in the factory farming system? And what does it mean for the planet?

Meat plant workers

  • Processing sausages at a German plant

    Revealed: exploitation of meat plant workers rife across UK and Europe

  • A slaughterhouse in Romania

    ‘The whole system is rotten’: life inside Europe’s meat industry

    • EU ‘failing to stop meat industry exploiting agency workers’

    • The invisible migrant workers propping up Ireland’s €4bn meat industry

    • Less meat is good for us and the planet – why are politicians shy to say so?

      Felicity Lawrence

    • Supermarkets vow to cut ties with meat suppliers found to exploit workers

    • Low pay, long hours, broken dreams: working at Europe’s biggest meat exporter

    • ‘We have to fight for these conditions’: why Danish meat plant workers are Europe’s best paid

Live exports

  • Piglets fill a truck as they’re shipped from a large breeding facility to an Illinois hog confinement operation to be fattened for market.

    Animals at risk in giant global industry

  • Bruna

    Live animal exports are being used as cover by smugglers, say NGOs

    Huge vessels used to transport farm animals are an attractive option for criminals smuggling drugs, arms and people
  • Animal welfare protesters are seen at a rally in front of the Al Kuwait live export ship as sheep are loaded in Fremantle harbour, Tuesday, June 16, 2020. A number of crew members tested positive with COVID-19 and quarantined when the ship arrived in Fremantle over three weeks ago. They were scheduled to pick up the sheep for transport to the Middle East before the northern summer ban on June 1st came into place to stop sheep dying from heat stress. The Federal Department of Agriculture have now approved a second application to transport the sheep and it must leave by Wednesday.(AAP Image/Richard Wainwright) NO ARCHIVING

    Animals to be formally recognised as sentient beings in UK law

    Set of government measures will include halting most live animal exports and a ban on hunting trophy imports
  • A crane moves a container next to livestock ship Karim Allah at Escombreras port in Cartagena, Spain, on 27 February.

    How nearly 3,000 cattle came to be stranded at sea for three months

  • Some of the 40,000 horses flown to Japan in similar crates from Canada since 2013. Canadian law allows them to be exported without food, rest or even water for up to 28 hours.

    Protests at 'inhumane' export of live horses to Japan for food

  • Ships are anchored outside the Suez canal in Ain Shokhna, near Suez, Egypt, 26 March 2021.

    At least 20 livestock ships caught in Suez canal logjam

  • Livestock in wooden boxes being offloaded from an aircraft.

    Cows might fly: Ireland to jet calves to Europe to cut travel time

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Deforestation

  • Village elder Xinuxi Mỹky in Menku territory in Brazil

    ‘This land belonged to us’: Nestlé supply chain linked to disputed Indigenous territory

  • A single tree is all that remains of a field cleared for soya in the Brazilian Cerrado

    UK supermarkets could still be buying meat linked to deforestation in Brazil, report suggests

    • A poultry production line at JBS, in Lapa, Paraná state, Brazil, March 2017

      Brazil’s meat plants could be putting pregnant workers at risk, say health experts

    • Cattle grazing at a property in Boca do Acre, Acre, Brazil

      Brazil’s Amazon beef plan will ‘legalise deforestation’ say critics

    • Workers butcher livestock in Marfrig slaughterhouse facility

      Brazil’s meat plant workers at risk from ‘inconceivable’ plan to cut break times

Loads more stories and moves focus to first new story.

Animal welfare

  • Fur farming investigation in China HSI’s investigation at nine fur farms in northern China — one of the world’s largest fur producing countries — focuses on a side of the fur trade rarely exposed in investigations, the suffering of babies and their mothers forced to live in cramped, filthy, unnatural conditions. Fur farming has been illegal in the UK since the Fur Farming (Prohibition) Acts came into force in 2003. Despite this, HMRC records show that £28,492,281 of fur has been imported to the UK from China in the last five years. HSI/UK is urging the Government to end this double standard by banning imports and sales of fur in the UK. ERIC PHOTOS: https://media.gutools.co.uk/search?query=hsi%20china%20fur&nonFree=true

    ‘We keep pets and eat livestock, why not this?’: China’s defiant fur farmers

    Business is declining amid growing awareness of animal abuse, but bans on fur farming in Europe could restore fortunes
  • Cows in a pasture

    McDonald’s and Walmart beef suppliers criticised for ‘reckless’ antibiotics use

  • Referendum posters in Zurich

    Swiss to vote in national poll on banning factory farming

  • UK retailers blocking moves to end the killing of day-old male chicks

  • UK has more than 1,000 livestock mega-farms, investigation reveals

  • How a Spanish tourist spot became a global hub for live animal export

  • Fans, sprinklers and cold baths for cows: India’s dairy farmers face searing heat

  • More than 20 million farm animals die on way to abattoir in US every year

  • US bird flu outbreak: millions of birds culled in ‘most inhumane way available’

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