As the world’s oldest farmed animal welfare organization, Compassion in World Farming has a long history advocating for an end to factory farming. CIWF’s legacy campaigns have included calling for bans on the export of live animals, an end to the caging and confinement of farmed animals, and the recognition of animals as sentient beings able to feel pain, joy, and suffering. In the United States, CIWF has led a movement encouraging food businesses to implement meaningful animal welfare reforms while supporting other key policy and legislative goals.

Until recently, CIWF has had little to no involvement in community-driven campaigns to pause the creation and expansion of megafarms or large concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) across the United States. As the human, environmental and animal welfare toll taken by factory farming has intensified so has the local and nationally coordinated efforts to introduce CAFO moratoriums led by smallholder farmers, food chain workers, local environmental and public health groups.

CIWF has relied on the experiences of local leaders and in the development of its AI- generated CAFO Moratorium Toolkit. We spoke with groups such as Animal Agriculture Reform Collaborative, Center for Food Safety, Socially Responsible Agriculture Project, which have informed our understanding of the mechanisms by which CAFO moratoriums may be introduced by concerned citizens.

We have learned from the efforts of groups such as the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network and their decades-long fights with Smithfield hog operations in the Tar Heel State, as well as the Stand Up to Factory Farms coalition in Oregon, which recently enjoyed some success with the introduction of Assembly Bill 85, and GrassRoots Organizing-Western Wisconsin which helped pass the strongest waste storage ordinance in the state.

It is our hope that the development of this accessible and visually appealing CAFO Moratorium toolkit can help transfer some of the learnings of dedicated local and national organizations who have been fighting the expansion of megafarms in communities across the country to a new audience that is already sensitized to the suffering of farmed animals. Every year we are contacted by supporters asking what they can do about the factory farm in their community that is polluting their waterways, polluting their air, and devastating their community economically and socially. The CAFO Moratorium Toolkit is an offering of support for these communities.

If you have been affected by factory farming in your area, please contact Compassion in World Farming and we will help support efforts to ensure a brighter future for your community and for farmed animals everywhere.

Check out CIWF’s CAFO Moratorium Toolkit.