We all have an interest in stopping factory farming.
Factory farming is one of the most destructive and cruel systems humanity has ever invented. In the UK alone, roughly 1.2 billion land animals are killed each year - and around one billion of these are chickens.
Yet there are fierce debates around how to end it. Fortunately the animal movement uses a variety of tactics, from vegan outreach to behind-the-scenes lobbying.
A lot of effort has been put into educating the public about the realities of factory farming, and with some success. There were a mere 150,000 vegans in the UK in 2014, 0.25 per cent of the population and today there are perhaps two million, three per cent of the population, although some estimates are higher.
Welfare
While this growth is deeply encouraging, there remains a problem - what about all the animals who remain on farms right now? Is it right that they are suffering in unnecessary ways while people still eat animal products?
Eating more plants is a huge part of the solution, but it is worth acknowledging that a hen raised outside of a cage has a significantly better life than one inside a cage.
But who decides how animals are treated? The British Government is one answer. Another is big food companies like supermarkets, who call the shots when it comes to animal farming. If a supermarket wants chickens reared in a certain way, there’s not a lot a farmer can do to oppose them.
That’s where The Humane League UK comes in. Our specialism is aggressive, public facing campaigns against food companies, to ensure they improve the minimal standards for animals in their care.
This means getting better lives for the worst treated animals in a supply chain, not offering a more expensive, higher welfare option which shoppers can ignore.
We all have an interest in stopping factory farming.
Effective
Companies are more susceptible to pressure than Governments. Many of them must be forced to act by receiving bad publicity. Where some groups use the carrot, we favour the stick.
It isn’t easy. Our flagship policy for improving the lives of chickens raised for meat, the Better Chicken Commitment, ends the use of overbred, fast-growing chicken breeds we call Frankenchickens.
Yet with the notable exceptions of Waitrose and M&S, supermarkets have circled the wagons and refused to stop using Frankechickens.
After all, these are multibillion pound companies with thousands of employees, while The Humane League UK is a 25 person team.Yet we draw disproportionate strength from our team, our supporters, and our volunteers.
Without our volunteers we would lack the on the ground presence so vital for holding companies accountable. Having protesters arrive at a place of work, equipped with images of the cruelty these companies commit, is embarrassing for them and therefore effective.
Monster
Our mailing list gives us access to tens of thousands of people who we mobilise for digital actions; commenting on social media posts, ringing customer service lines, sending letters to CEOs and MPs, and letting companies know, in every public space they occupy, that animal cruelty will not be tolerated.
In the last few years we have focused on using increasingly disruptive and attention-grabbing tactics. We have disrupted Co-op’s AGM two years in a row, after going through the supermarket’s democratic processes to attempt to secure change. Despite over 90 per cent of voters demanding Co-op stop using the overbred Frankenchickens, the leadership refused to do it.
But while Co-op has dug in their heels, we have secured other victories. This year the supermarket Iceland dropped its commitment to going cage-free. So we launched a campaign against them, covered here in The Ecologist.
After a staff member challenged Richard Walker, Iceland’s CEO, directly at a breakfast event, and an ad-van with his face began circling Iceland’s HQ in Deeside, the dye was cast. In July they recommitted to going cage-free, albeit with a later deadline.
Similarly this October we sent an ad-van to the Ashford HQ of food service company Brakes, and protested the European office of Sysco, the 50 billion dollar monster company which owns Brakes.
Helped
The company had promised to go cage-free by 2025, but had removed their commitment from their website. A few days later Brakes, which had ignored all prior requests to meet, had come to the negotiating table, promising to make their cage-free commitment public once again and that they would meet their commitment deadline.
Importantly, all of the UK’s big seven supermarkets have now agreed to give their chickens more space, after years of campaigning. This will improve the lives of hundreds of millions of animals. Without changing the breed of the bird it falls far short of what we want, but it is nevertheless encouraging progress.
But this progress isn’t just localised to us. The Humane League set up the Open Wing Alliance, a global coalition of over 90 charities across 37 countries.
Their incredible work has ensured that 92 per cent of global companies who committed to go cage-free by the end of 2025 had done so. These diligent member charities have made corporate animal welfare campaigns an international success story.
The results stand for themselves - for every pound donated to The Humane League (which includes our US and UK teams) 15 animals will be helped. It's a testament to how much good anti-factory farming charities can do.
Compassion
The corporate world cannot be allowed to break promises and serve people animal cruelty because it makes their bank balances bigger.
We all have an interest in stopping factory farming: because it abuses sentient beings; because it contaminates our rivers; because it breeds new diseases and antibiotic resistant bugs. It's corporations who have the power to change it.
With meagre progress among those companies who promised to stop using Frankenchickens, we are planning a storm of campaigning.
We will need all the help we can get to prevent food business execs from hunkering down and waiting for the thunder to pass. But with the help, we will strike like lightning and fight for a future in which all sentient life is offered the compassion and respect they deserve.
This Author
Claire Williams is the campaigns manager at The Humane League UK.
