About RAW

The rise of factory farming

We need not look far to see the evidence of factory farms. Most grocery stores in most countries around the world - from the UK to the Ukraine to the United States - stock their products. Around 2 in every 3 farm animals are factory farmed.

Put simply, factory farming prioritises maximum production above all else. Animals are treated as commodities and are often raised in intense confinement. Factory farming is highly dependent on large quantities of limited resources such as grain-based feed, water, energy and medication. This modern phenomenon allowed vast quantities of seemingly cheap meat, milk and eggs to be produced.

Our food and farming systems are failing

But we join the growing global consensus that factory farming doesn't work. Factory farming is all too often seen as the cheap, efficient solution to feeding our world. But this could not be further from the truth; nearly one billion people are already hungry. The grain feeding of confined animals actually uses more food than it produces. For every 100 food calories of edible crops fed to livestock, we get back just 30 calories in the form of meat and dairy; a 70% loss. In short, people are being forced to compete with farm animals for food.

And it's not just wasteful - factory farming also leads to a wide range of impacts, from pollution to disease to climate change. Find out more about the impacts of factory farming.

In short, industrialised meat and dairy farming is dangerous, unfair and dirty. It fails to account for our wellbeing or the wellbeing of the planet and its other living inhabitants.

There is a better way

Factory farming is one of the greatest sustainability concerns of our time; Tackling it is a daunting challenge but this presents a unique opportunity to resolve some of the world's most pressing economic, environmental and ethical challenges.

We need a common sense approach to feeding the world. One that ends the competition for food between people and farm animals and delivers more effective food systems geared towards feeding all people, now and in the future. We need a food and farming revolution.

RAW represents a food and farming revolution. Our vision is a world where all have access to healthy, affordable food, produced from farming systems that are:

• Safer, promoting our welfare and that of farm animals
• Fairer, supporting rural livelihoods and relieving poverty
• Greener, protecting the planet and its precious natural resources

Let's kickstart a food and farming revolution

We campaign with people around the world to expose the true costs of factory farming and push for better food and farming. But we'll only achieve this with your help...

Join RAW and take action to help kickstart a food and farming revolution.

Brought to you by Compassion in World Farming

Raw is brought to you by Compassion in World Farming. The organisation was founded over 40 years ago by a British farmer who became horrified by the development of modern, intensive factory farming. Find out more about Compassion.

Huge thanks to Pascal for the 2nd image (cc)