Government investments 'help fund factory farming'

More than £116m of UK taxpayers’ money has been used to fund “cruel and damaging” factory farms abroad in the past five years, analysis has found.

- JANE DALTON

Projects range from the construction of new factory farms and fisheries to animal feed mills in countries including Vietnam, China, Brazil and Uganda.

Chickens in industrial farms are often confined to spaces smaller than a piece of A4 paper, while pigs undergo castration and taildocking without pain relief.

Researchers who looked at shares held by the government in five global development banks said the cash has helped fuel greenhouse gas emissions, as well as air pollution, antibiotic resistance and pesticide use, which all threaten human health.

Schemes supported by the banks have also taken homes, livelihoods and ancestral lands from local communities through the expansion of industrial agriculture, according to a study carried out for the World Animal Protection organisation.

The report called “Your Taxes, Their Farms: Funding Factory Farming Abroad”, analysed 1,855 projects from 2018 to last year funded by development banks, which are set up and funded by governments to offer loans for economic growth. The UK government said taxpayer money was not directly used in these projects.

But the UK is the largest donor to the International Finance Corporation (IFC), which in 20 years has lent more than £150m to expand factory farms in Ecuador, the study found.

The scheme prompted protests from Indigenous communities, who were prevented from fishing and bathing when rivers became polluted, World Animal Protection said.