Correction: An earlier version of this article said that pig farms in Ecuador's Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas region generated roughly 15 million pounds a day. It has been corrected to reflect the fact that 4.4 million pounds of waste are generated per day.
Our natural world is in crisis. An area the size of Portugal is deforested every year on average, and wildlife populations have declined by an average of 73% since 1970. Deforestation is a leading driver of the climate crisis, and wildlife loss can destabilize precious ecosystems.
To tackle this, two years ago governments agreed on the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), a set of goals and targets to protect nature. On October 21, leaders will meet at the United Nations biodiversity COP16 summit in Colombia to formally review their progress for the first time.
The industrial animal livestock sector is by far the largest driver of biodiversity loss, and must be where attendees at COP16 focus their attention.
“There is no nature anymore. Pollution in the air, pollution in the river.”
In the last 50 years, global milk production has more than doubled and meat production has more than tripled. This increase has been achieved through industrialisation—by putting more and more animals in smaller spaces, in worse conditions, feeding them more supplements and medicines, and using resources more intensely. It has led to poor animal welfare, low quality of food, and health risks for humans and other animals, including antibiotic resistance.
It has also led to hugely negative impacts on the environment, including for wild animals and their habitats. Livestock farming is the leading driver of deforestation—with clearing of forests for land for cattle accounting for 42% of all deforestation. The production of farmed animals and the feed for them now occupies 80% of the world’s agricultural land, yet provides just 17% of humans’ global calorie supply.
As a result of these factors, today 70% of all birds on Earth are farmed poultry, and 93% of all non-human mammals are livestock with just 7% wild. Overhauling the way we produce food is vital to protect our natural environment and to stem species loss.
Multilateral development banks (MDBs)—such as the World Bank Group—have made a series of commitments to protect nature, yet despite this the five biggest MDBs invested over $4.6 billion in factory farming between 2011 and 2021, and have shown no signs of reducing their spending since.
At the U.N. climate conference COP26 in 2021, leading MDBs released a Joint Nature Statement promising to support governments and the private sector to tackle nature loss. And at COP28 last year they went a step further, including committing to “tackl[e] the drivers of nature loss by fostering ‘nature positive’ investments” and “valu[e] nature to guide decision-making.”
In addition, Target 14 of the Global Biodiversity Framework agreed by world leaders requires public and private financial flows to be aligned with the goals of the GBF. This means MDBs must ensure their investments align with other GBF targets, like Target 4 to halt species extinction, and Target 10 to enhance biodiversity and sustainability in agriculture.
But rather than investing in sustainable forms of food production, MDBs are propping up a broken model of factory farming that is totally at odds with these pledges.
For example, the private sector branches of the World Bank Group and the Inter-American Development Bank Group have together invested over $200 million into PRONACA, Ecuador's largest pork and poultry producer. PRONACA used the funds to build and expand a series of factory farms, including in Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas, an area of Ecuador home to Indigenous peoples and tropical forest.
According to a shocking report by the Ecuadorian Coordinator of Organizations for the Defense of Nature and the Environment (CEDENMA), PRONACA's pig farms in the area generate roughly 4.4 million pounds of toxic waste each day, fouling the soil, air, and waterways.
CEDENMA surveyed local communities about the impact of the factory farms. Interviewees told them that PRONACA contaminated rivers, killing off fish that local people rely on for food and jobs, and harming local tourism. One intensive pig breeding farm was set up just meters away from a sacred site.
“There is no nature anymore. Pollution in the air, pollution in the river,” said one local resident.
Investments like in PRONACA are unfortunately just one of hundreds of harmful factory farm investments made by MDBs. Similar investments have been made or are being planned in Bangladesh, Nigeria, Poland, and elsewhere all over the world.
Ahead of COP16, we and other members of the Stop Financing Farming coalition are calling on MDBs to stick to the commitments they’ve made to protect nature by ruling out any further finance for factory farming and instead supporting more nature-friendly forms of agriculture. This means investing in the production of more plant-rich foods, and when they do finance animal agriculture, ensuring it is sustainable, following the principles of agroecology.
Shifting finance in this way would not only help protect nature, but also promote nutritionally superior diets, create jobs, and tackle climate change.
