Industrial farming
More than 70 billion animals are farmed annually and, 50 billion of them spend their lives on factory farms. They are treated more like machines, than living, breathing, feeling animals. They endure short, miserable lives and are often confined together in cages, crates or pens, which prevents them from engaging in natural behaviours.
To stop the suffering, World Animal Protection has endorsed the Plant Based Treaty, an initiative designed to put food systems at the forefront of combating the climate crisis, and calls for an end to any expansion of factory farming.
The Treaty urges leaders to negotiate a global agreement around the following three principles:
Relinquish: the animal agriculture industry cannot continue to expand and deforest the earth.
Redirect: promote a radical shift to plant-based food systems away from animal agriculture.
Restore: heal key ecosystems and reforest the Earth.
Ecosystems
The Treaty’s overall goal is to halt the widespread degradation of critical ecosystems caused by animal agriculture and to promote a shift to healthier, sustainable plant-based diets.
Reducing our meat consumption will take the pressure off our food system and make a huge difference to the lives of these animals and free-up resources to help move to smaller scale higher welfare livestock production farming.
Elodie Guillon, Network Manager, World Animal Protection, said:
“World Animal Protection has endorsed the Plant Based Treaty to raise awareness of factory farming as a significant emitter of greenhouse gases. We also want to pressure governments to negotiate a global agreement to halt the impact of animal agriculture on animals, the planet and human health and promote a shift to more sustainable, plant-based diets.”
“The Plant Based Treaty can serve as a complement to the Paris Agreement, and provide a framework to tackle emissions from the sector, whilst driving a just, humane and sustainable transition away from intensive animal agriculture.”
Join us Animal agriculture is the leading cause of animal suffering, and the expansion must be stopped. Eat plants, plant trees and endorse the Plant Based Treaty.
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Image credits: PARALAXIS/Shutterstock (Hero Image) and JuergenPM / Pixabay (blog page image)
