Shifting bank funding away from factory farming

Abstract

Banks and other financial institutions, including multilateral development banks, provide huge sums to establish and expand industrial animal farms. In doing so, they are, directly or indirectly, funding animal cruelty, deforestation, climate change, biodiversity loss, soil degradation, antimicrobial resistance and zoonotic disease risks. Some banks now recognise the need to consider the welfare of farm animals and to assist them, the Farm Animal Responsible Minimum Standards (FARMS) Initiative provides Responsible Minimum Standards (RMS) for the main farmed species. Several key financial institutions take these Standards as their reference point for animal welfare. When funding animal farming, banks should fund genuinely nature-based farming systems which meet the FARMS RMS as a minimum. In addition, lenders need to develop ways of providing micro-loans to smallholder farmers, particularly those engaged in agroecology and regenerative agriculture.