PI: Zach Wulderk

Date Awarded: May 2023 (FSRF 2023-02-23)

Key Findings (from final report):

1. The fight against animal agriculture is an antitrust fight. Competition is low in the global animal agriculture industry, with a small number of giant companies that control most of it. Corporations like Tyson or JBS are highly “vertically integrated”: in addition to slaughtering billions of animals a year, they often own the mills that grind corn into feed, the genetics companies that breed fast-growing chickens, hatcheries where chicks are born, flocks comprising millions of birds, slaughterhouses, processing plants, and trucks that deliver products to stores. Integrating all of these stages under one giant corporation makes the production process cheaper and enables these companies to create staggering amounts of animal suffering. These megacorporations have also consolidated their markets by absorbing competitors or driving them out of business, producing a consumer landscape in which seemingly different brands—Jimmy Dean, Hillshire Farm, Ball Park, Sara Lee, and more—are actually all Tyson products. Other companies simply can’t compete, leaving global giants like Tyson and JBS to dictate the rules and giving farmers little choice over which companies they work with.

2. The U.S., China, and Brazil are key to the chicken, fish, and egg industries. Not only are they global leaders in production, imports, and exports of animal products, they also literally feed the animal agriculture industry. As one example, Brazilian soybeans are used to feed Chinese fish that are ultimately eaten by U.S. consumers. An understanding of how the animal agriculture industry functions requires advocates to be familiar with the role these three countries play.

3. The aquaculture industry hasn’t yet consolidated or standardized as much as the broiler chicken and egg industries have, but it will. Intensive aquaculture is relatively new and uses a wider variety of animals and production methods so it hasn’t yet achieved the same level of efficiency as some other animal agriculture industries. However, this advancement will almost certainly happen in the coming years if nothing is done to stop it. With this intensification comes bigger, more concentrated operations, leading to even more animal suffering. Around the world, many governments consider aquaculture the future and are creating programs and initiatives to support its continued rise. Without intervention, aquaculture companies will consolidate, vertically integrate, and intensify their operations.

4. Governments have not only allowed but also encouraged animal agriculture to grow to this point. In the U.S., companies have benefited from indirect subsidies that lower the cost of animal feed, as well as a regulatory environment that has allowed megacorporations to emerge and have considerable influence over the policies that are supposed to regulate them. In Brazil and China, the governments have directly supported animal agriculture with money and programs to promote the growth of companies they favor.

5. Animal agriculture corporations' profits are sensitive to many risks. Despite their power, these corporations are subject to a number of risks. In the U.S., current regulations require the ones that are publicly traded to disclose these risks as potential threats to their business so we have some insight into them. Those potential threats include consumer demands for better animal welfare, strengthened environmental policies, having to increase employee wages, and the loss of companies that are major customers.

6. The modern model of animal agriculture even hurts the farmers that work for it. Contract “grow-out” farmers (who raise the chickens that the megacorporations own) must often take out massive loans to meet those companies’ increasing demands. Even if they wanted to change industries, these farmers get trapped in debt and have little choice but to keep working for that industry. In the U.S. and Brazilian broiler chicken industries, a “tournament system” also pits these farmers against each other and lowers the pay for many. Some experts also fear that the rise of aquaculture could lead to further international exploitation of farmers.

7. Animal feed is the biggest cost the animal agriculture industry has to cover. While this always tends to be true, it has become more extreme over time: Feed now often makes up two-thirds of the money corporations spend to make animal products. Feeding the animals is a necessity, but because it is so costly for them, companies are looking for ways to make animals grow larger or produce more eggs with smaller amounts of food. They also benefit from government policies that make feed ingredients cheap. However, just because feed is the industry’s biggest expense doesn’t mean it’s the only thing advocates should focus on. These companies constantly look for cost-saving measures in every aspect of their business, from animal housing to labor costs to slaughter methods. Welfare-focused reforms like cage-free and slower slaughter line speeds aim to help animals but also reduce the industry’s profits. Higher wages for employees and tougher environmental regulations can do the same.

Wulderk, Z. & Anderson, J. (2023). Domination And Exploitation: Understanding Industry Costs For Chicken, Egg, And Fish Products In The United States, Brazil, And China. Faunalytics. https://faunalytics.org/industry-costs/

Further Information: The full report can also be downloaded here.