From the United Kingdom to Italy, and from Spain and Brazil to the USA, Compassion in World Farming has commissioned leading photographers to capture the portraits of people severely impacted by the tragic consequences of industrial animal farming.
Join our movement to END.IT - calling on world leaders to transform our food system urgently, and end factory farming.
“I’ve had to move twice because of factory farming in Powys, and it’s been devastating. After the first move, I put everything I had into buying ‘Hope Chapel’, a beautiful but dilapidated building, only to receive another planning letter for 90,000 broilers right next door - I felt utterly shattered and powerless.
My dreams of finally having a home were ruined by the constant noise, smell and traffic, and the animal cruelty made me feel sick - I didn’t want to live next door to a factory, it was nearer me than the farmer!
The noise would wake me at night, so I stopped sleeping; the stress caused panic attacks, and my work as an artist stopped. I felt like a wasp in a jar - trapped, angry and desperate.”
KATE MILSON
POWYS, WALES
Image credit: Richard Dunwoody/CIWF
“There are about 20 million chickens in Herefordshire – I counted them, it’s an abomination.
Factory farms create miserable environments for local communities, people can’t open their windows, and the River Wye has been poisoned- and we’re subsidising them! They don’t pay business rates or vehicle tax, and we pay to mend the roads they destroy, clean the rivers up which they’ve destroyed and what are they doing? Producing cheap, nasty food and providing a miserable existence for animals.
Chickens should be outside pecking for food, not each other, cows should be out grazing fields, not kept inside their entire lives. Factory farming should be stopped. I just hope that we get a government that takes climate change seriously or I don’t think there’s going to be a world for my grandchildren to live in.”
ROS BRADBURY
KINGTON, HEREFORD, ENGLAND
Image credit: Richard Dunwoody/CIWF
“When I found out about the poultry unit planned for Knighton, I was shocked - Powys Council had declared a climate emergency, and we know factory farming produces a quarter of greenhouse gases, causes horrible suffering to chickens, and is killing the planet.
The loss of biodiversity on the Earth is devastating - I weep for animals I will never know or see. There used to be so many dragonflies and damselflies dancing around by the river, now I'm lucky if I see two.
I grew up in the countryside, and we used to complain about the dawn chorus, it was so noisy; now you're just longing for it.
What do we want for future generations? Ravaged landscapes destroyed for short-term profit, crowded with prisons for animals? If humans could just cultivate more empathy for all beings on Earth, and accept our interdependence, we'd be able to co-exist and stop waging war on the Earth.”
CAMILLA SAUNDERS
POWYS, WALES
Image credit: Richard Dunwoody/CIWF
“We chose to live in nature, to hear nothing but the birds, and were horrified when we heard about the pig factory plan near our Huesca hamlet. We knew what it meant, the smell is unbelievable, and what would happen to our beautiful stream? Our way of life? I felt directly threatened and attacked. I’d never been an activist before, but had to do everything I could to stop the factories.
Animals are treated like industrial products and our landscape has been destroyed - all you can see in Aragon are pig farms. The soil is saturated with nitrates, the air is polluted, and you can’t drink the water - access to drinking water is a human right!
We are pioneers against the pig farms, to stop this race forward towards disaster - they want to squash us, but I'm going to fight all the way.”
MARIA JOSE
HUESCA, ARAGON, SPAIN
Image credit: Richard Dunwoody/CIWF
"At the time, we didn't have the scientific knowledge that we now after years of battles, but we knew one thing; an intensive farm like this would have a huge impact on our community and it was totally anachronistic, especially in our region that had a ban on new pig farms.
The local government called us terrorists; they told us that we scared people by associating health risks with intensive farming. There is a lot of talk about reducing emissions but then projects like this continue to be authorised.
We feel cheated on. Many of us are demoralized because of the disparity of power, they have the experts, the technicians, the lawyers, we struggle to find them. But us citizens pay: we pay taxes to the council, we pay for the impacts we're suffering and we pay for the consultants to protect ourselves, our rights, the public interests and for the common good."
MAURA CAPPI
SCHIVENOGLIA, LOMBARDY, ITALY
Image credit: Richard Dunwoody/CIWF
“When I go to our community meeting, they tell me all the bacteria that's inside the house, outside the house, in the water, everywhere they check, there's something related to the hog farm.
I feel like I'm living in a hog pen because there are so many hog houses here. If you look at a map and see how many hog houses there are in Duplin County there's nowhere you can go to escape a hog house.
I would like for them to clean up the air, clean up the water. They're testing it and keep finding stuff in it. Just clean it up. That's all.
Everybody I've talked to says it has impacted them, but a lot of people won't say it. They're afraid they might lose their job. They're just afraid.
I hope they go ahead and clean it up. If it takes as long as it's taking, I may not be around, but I still got children that may want to come back and live here.”
JESSIE JARMON
NORTH CAROLINA, USA
Image credit: Molly Condit / CIWF / We Animals Media
“We’re not superheroes who can take so much aggression and not get destroyed. Our psyche has been affecting our physical well-being. There’s like a wall preventing us from getting the bare minimum: to live at peace, to be healthy, to have decent food on our table.
When we have created this association to work without burning the forest, without using pesticides, they sent their guns-for-hire after us. I felt as if I had already died. I was looking at my own grave, it was awful [ the day two meticulously dug graves, crosses and all, appeared outside the front door].
Now there is also illegal mining. They are already destroying the river and killing the fish, right by our land. I say the biggest villains to blame are the loggers. I feel as if they and the cattle ranchers have opened the way for these miners. And now our struggle will have to be also against them.
We're not made of iron.”
OSVALINDA MARIA ALVES PEREIRA (03.06.68 - 12.04.24)
BELEM, BRAZIL
Image credit: Mauricio Monteiro Filho/CIWF
“I was born inside the forest. My parents lived and died here. They raised our family here. I raised my family here. There were game animals, there were fish in the creeks, there were fruits. But ever since soya farming arrived, around 2004, first in small crops and more recently in industrial farming scale, us, indigenous, are living in torment.
We see this industrial farming being promoted in the government propaganda, saying it generates income, jobs. It’s all a lie. It creates no jobs, as everything is mechanised.
Machines take down the forest. Machines seed. Machines harvest. Machines load the grain in the trucks. Machines take it from the trucks onto the ships that will take it abroad. Machines do everything, so there is no need for any humans.
We are watching the destruction of our forest, the death of our animals, the disappearance of our fruits, of the native medicines that healed us.”
PAULO DA SILVA BEZERRA
AÇAIZAL VILLAGE, MUNDURUKU OF THE PLATEAU INDIGENOUS TERRITORY, LOCATED IN THE CITY OF SANTAREM, PARA STATE, BRAZIL
Image credit: Mauricio Monteiro Filho/CIWF
“No money in the world is worth what this land is worth. This is what is most valuable to us: this land. I learned from my parents that it is shameful to shed false tears. But when you are fighting for what is right, there is nothing more noble than to cry. (Manoel weeps unconsolably).
The white people are killing themselves as well, by this greed for money. Because the destruction of our forest brings no future to us, indigenous, as it brings no future to anyone.
We are in pain and in tears for watching our sacred places being destroyed, deforested by the irresponsibility of the white people. So, our very existence, and the existence of every people in Brazil is under threat.”
MANOEL BATISTA DA ROCHA
AÇAIZAL VILLAGE, MUNDURUKU OF THE PLATEAU INDIGENOUS TERRITORY, LOCATED IN THE CITY OF SANTAREM, PARA STATE, BRAZIL
Image credit: Mauricio Monteiro Filho/CIWF
A global movement to end factory farming initiated by Compassion in World Farming.