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.
Researchers who looked at shares held by the government in five global development banks said the cash has also 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. But the UK government said taxpayer money is not directly used in these projects.
Projects range from the construction of new factory farms and fisheries to animal feed mills, in countries including Vietnam, China, Brazil and Uganda.
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 claimed.
“Factory farming undermines food security for communities around the world through the inefficient use of resources,” the report warned. “As cruel factory farming grows, more and more land that could be used to grow crops for humans or to protect wildlife is instead used to plant crops like soy to feed factory-farmed animals.”
The funding will also stop the UK from meeting its net-zero targets because such farms account for most of agriculture’s carbon dioxide emissions, it claimed.
Harvard University researchers say global livestock emissions must be halved by 2030 to meet the Paris climate target. “This will not be achieved if factory farming continues to be funded and expanded,” the report authors said.
They add using huge quantities of water to grow animal feed also causes forest loss, destroying habitats.
“The UK government is not only jeopardising the country’s ability to meet its climate commitments by allowing taxpayer money to fund factory farming operations abroad, but it is also allowing billions of sentient animals to suffer on a global scale,” the report concludes.
A 2018 study said: “Animals reared in factory farming systems are routinely subjected to extreme physical and mental harm. Most are kept in small cages or overcrowded, unsanitary spaces and throughout their lives have no access to the outdoors and cannot express natural behaviours.”
Chickens are often confined to spaces smaller than a piece of A4 paper, while pigs undergo castration and tail-docking without pain relief.
Development banks receiving UK cash have promised to align operations with the Paris climate deal.
But Lindsay Duncan, of World Animal Protection, said development banks and member countries should re-evaluate practices that “contribute to immense animal suffering as well as significant social and environmental impacts”.
She said: “Funding should be redirected to systems that support regenerative farming and that offer plant-based alternatives alongside high-welfare meat products.”
A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “The foreign secretary has been clear that tackling the climate and nature emergency is the most important geopolitical challenge of our age. Part of the solution is unlocking much more climate and nature finance, and this starts with multilateral development banks. The five MDBs featured in the report provided over $63bn to tackle climate change in 2023 alone.
“Taxpayer money is provided to the banks as capital, which the banks use as leverage to borrow from the bond markets. Taxpayer money is therefore not directly used in these projects.”
An IFC spokesperson said: “Livestock plays a vital economic role in development, supporting the livelihoods of approximately 1.3 billion people worldwide, with women accounting for around 70 per cent of the sector’s workforce.
“It also serves as a source of high-quality protein and essential micronutrients.”
They added, in line with IFC’s Practices for Sustainable Investment in Private Sector Livestock Operations, it worked with livestock clients which were “committed to enhancing animal health and welfare, protecting the environment and promoting food safety”.
Last week, analysts from the Stop Financing Factory Farming coalition said that 15 leading multilateral development banks and the Green Climate Fund together invested $3.33bn (£2.57bn) in animal agriculture projects last year.