The International Finance Corporation’s Dubious Defense of Factory Farming
Stop Financing Factory Farming
12th May '25
A recent Common Dreams article by Compassion in World Farming‘s Chief Policy Adviser Peter Stevenson expresses serious concern over misleading claims made by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) on its newly published webpage, “Striving for Sustainability: IFC’s Role in the Livestock Sector.” Stevenson argues that the IFC dismisses well-documented harms of industrial livestock production as “myths,” despite scientific consensus to the contrary. He warns that this stance distorts public understanding and undermines efforts to transform the global food system.
The IFC claims it is a “myth” that industrial animal agriculture:
- Harms food security — despite evidence that vast amounts of human-edible grain and soy are fed to animals inefficiently, driving up prices and reducing global food availability.
- Damages the environment — despite factory farms’ role in polluting air and water, degrading soil, and accelerating biodiversity loss through feed crop monocultures.
- Undermines small-scale farmers — despite the World Bank’s own 2024 report recognizing industrial agriculture’s role in deepening rural poverty and landlessness.
- Causes animal suffering — despite the IFC’s own animal welfare guidance acknowledging confinement, painful procedures, overcrowding, and poor living conditions as welfare risks.
Stevenson calls on IFC to cease all promotion of industrial animal agriculture, in line with demands from the Stop Financing Factory Farming campaign. Factory farming is not only environmentally and socially destructive but also incompatible with a food-secure and humane future.
