Preventing Factory Farming in Africa: Strategic Considerations

July 2024

“Despite its many drawbacks in the case of animal welfare as well as humanitarian concerns from food security to climate change, many political leaders perceive intensive farming to be a solution for food security and economic growth. Since the 1990s, there has been a dramatic increase in animal slaughter in Africa, correlating with the rise of factory farming.

Meat consumption is projected to grow substantially by 2050, with beef consumption growing by nearly 200 percent, poultry by 211 percent, and pork by 200 percent. While much of Africa’s meat is currently imported from Europe, America, and Asia, there are increasing global efforts to direct finance, training, and other resources towards establishing intensive farms in Africa.

While increasing food productivity would no doubt have benefits for Africa, a large-scale shift towards industrial animal agriculture could have disastrous consequences. Beyond the well-known concerns around animal welfare, public health, and the environment, widespread industrial animal agriculture in Africa would disrupt African communities, disrespect traditional livestock practices, and destroy the livelihoods of pastoral farmers.

– Abby Couture, Elise Hankins & Chris Bryant (Bryant Research), Lynn Tan & Moritz Stumpe (Animal Advocacy Africa)

Executive Summary

The rise of intensive animal agriculture across Sub-saharan Africa demands attention from animal advocates. This report provides a roadmap for effective animal advocacy in Africa by offering a detailed analysis of the current landscape and trajectory of animal agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa, and outlining strategic advocacy recommendations.

Guided by a country prioritisation framework, we focus on three specific countries: Nigeria, Ghana and Ethiopia. We conducted extensive desk research on the issues affecting animal agriculture in these countries, as well as nine in- depth interviews with African stakeholders and experts in veterinary science, epidemiology, sociology, economics, and alternative proteins. We then synthesised our findings in five key frameworks: PESTLE, SWOT, stakeholder maps, scenario planning, and our analysis of the key arguments.

Goal Of This Report

In the context of ongoing efforts to industrialise animal agriculture in Africa, this report aims to offer a detailed analysis of the forces and stakeholders involved, as well as a suite of actionable recommendations to combat the rise of African factory farms.

To this end;

  • We offer a detailed examination of the relevant political, economic, social, and other factors affecting the rise of industrial farming in Africa.
  • We review the internal and external advantages and challenges for our mission to prevent this increase.
  • We detail a range of relevant stakeholders in government, business, and civil society, and present key arguments on the topic.
  • Finally, we conducted a scenario planning exercise to analyse the outcomes and likelihood of a range of possible outcomes.

Ultimately, we present twelve strategic recommendations to engage a range of stakeholders with clear, impactful, and feasible demands. Along with our key argument analysis and stakeholder database, these recommendations form part of a set of strategic tools to help Animal Advocacy Africa mitigate the rise of factory farms on the continent.

12 Strategic Recommendations for Animal Advocacy in Africa

Our first recommendation is to lobby African governments to introduce a range of regulations and standards relating to livestock rearing and meat production. The goal is both to ensure minimum standards for health, safety, and environmental impact, but also to impose costs on large intensive livestock production facilities such that smaller farms can be more competitive.

As discussed, animal welfare is not a political priority, so the ask should not focus on introducing welfare standards solely for the sake of reducing animal suffering. Rather, we should support policies such as mandatory safety equipment for farm workers, mandatory veterinary checks for zoonotic diseases, and penalties for animal waste pollution for farms over a certain size.

Since it is neither practical nor desirable to enforce regulations on Africa’s millions of pastoral farmers, standards should be designed to address issues which only arise in the context of big industrial farms. For example, each farm could be required to pay per unit of animal waste they pollute beyond a certain threshold. If the threshold is sufficiently high, it would only apply to farm businesses large enough to afford to pay for it. Moreover, large farms should be required to adhere to stricter health and safety checks for animals. Producers can be incentivised to more consistently oversee this from a ‘risk management’ standpoint, whereby higher animal health and welfare can buffer against financial losses and increase quality, leading to greater consumer support.

For instance, significant financial losses have been incurred in Nigerian slaughterhouses due to the condemnation of diseased carcasses, meats, and organs, often caused by conditions like bovine tuberculosis, pleuro-pneumonia, fascioliasis, cysticercosis, and liver abscesses. Moreover, poor animal welfare can be bad for producers, as well as for animals. For example, research shows that dairy cows subjected to aversive handling, temperature extremes, diseases, and suboptimal feed may experience reduced milk production. Similarly, meat-producing animals, exposed to stress during farm conditions, transportation, and slaughter, may encounter compromised welfare and, consequently, diminished meat quality.

It is important to note that such regulations are only as strong as their enforcement. Food production standards in the name of workers’ rights, public health, or environmental protection must be advocated in collaboration with stakeholders who will hold governments to account for ensuring that producers do not break the rules.

We recommend lobbying African governments to restrict foreign ownership of agribusinesses. The goal of this approach is to directly prevent international companies from investing in factory farming operations. Notably, foreign agribusiness accounts for 37% of financial investment in African agriculture, so restrictions on this could significantly limit the capital available to build factory farms.

Not only would such restrictions directly prevent financial investment, they would also change the political incentives of international food businesses, and remove ambient political pressure towards outcomes which are negative for animals, such as cutting African farming regulations.

There are already restrictions on the types of businesses that non-citizens can own (see Section 3.1.5). Despite the importance of food security and the agricultural economy, the poultry export ban in Ethiopia appears to be the only restriction on foreign ownership of agribusinesses of any kind. The economic case for domestic ownership of food production seems to be stronger than the economic case for domestic ownership of beauty salons and taxi companies.

There ought to be a significant political appetite to introduce this type of restriction. African leaders and the FAO recognise the importance of protecting African pastoral farmers, and there is already a precedent for restricting foreign ownership of other types of business. If achieved, this ask would restrict funding for factory farms and may remove other anti-animal political pressures.

Smallholder farmers are the key to our goal of resisting factory farming in Africa. Not only are smallholders the alternative production system to factory farms, they are an extremely important and sympathetic political bloc. Both advocates of pastoral methods and advocates of intensification claim to be representing the interests of Africa’s rural poor.

The most promising effort to represent the interests of smallholders against intensification is the African Food Sovereignty Alliance (AFSA), and in particular their criticism of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). This represents a crucial touch point between the major advocates of pastoralism vs. intensification, and an organisation claiming to represent 200 million African food producers coming out against intensification.

Our proposed policy asks in Africa – to impose production standards on large commercial farms, and to restrict foreign ownership of African agribusinesses – are very much aligned with the African food sovereignty agenda. We should aim to generate support for these policies from smallholders via AFSA, as well as the Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana and the Union of Small and Medium-Scale Farmers of Nigeria.

An integral part of the prevention of intensified livestock farming will involve supporting smallholders with fiscal incentives to engage in regenerative and agroecological livestock systems (among those that engage in animal husbandry) while encouraging larger scale farmers to transition away from commercial livestock farming while provided social protection and assurance in a more fiscally sustainable future.

Farmers and workers frequently experience a sense of being trapped in precarious livelihoods, caught between powerful entities such as major agrochemical suppliers and livestock buyers. A just transition approach aims to address this by promoting equity in livestock value chain relationships and bolstering the negotiating power of smaller, more vulnerable producers. Emphasising the precarity of large scale commercialisation will be important for disincentivizing smallholders from expanding, for instance, by citing the often predatory nature of commercial farming contracts and the lack of support provided to abattoir workers, such as replacing expensive farming equipment, disease control, and keeping up with demanding quotas.

Adopting simple technologies such as new water storage solutions and affordable animal vaccinations can improve both animal welfare and animal productivity. By ensuring that pastoral livestock are sufficiently well fed, watered, sheltered, and medicated, they are not only likely to suffer less, they are also likely to grow more quickly and become sick less often. In turn, this is likely to increase the incomes of pastoral farmers.

Similar win-wins for animal welfare and productivity may be available through collaborating between farms to achieve village-level economies of scale. Ethiopia has successfully employed cluster farming as a powerful strategy for poverty reduction and rural development since 2010. This approach focuses on helping smallholder farmers transition from subsistence to semi-commercial practices by forming collaborations with neighbouring farmers to achieve economies of scale. The model allows for the joint utilisation of modern technologies, sharing costs for resources like tractors, enhancing bargaining power for better prices, and strengthening market connections for large-scale transactions.

The cluster model coupled with unionisation fosters community support, providing a sense of financial security due to cooperative formation contributing to higher income and poverty reduction. Cluster cooperatives and unionisation can also provide incentives for encouraging farm workers to commit to the humane treatment of livestock during rearing and slaughter.

A key point of strategic leverage here will be partnerships with other NGOs. As well as AFSA and the other natural allies focused on this issue discussed in Section 3.3.3., this means aligning with adjacent NGOs and engaging and educating those NGOs which are currently not aligned.

There are promising opportunities to align our asks with organisations in global health and sustainable development, particularly those with agendas relating to OneHealth, OneWelfare, agroecology, and food sovereignty. The goal here should be to leverage the resources of allied organisations to advance the most impactful and tractable strategies for preventing factory farming in a coordinated way. In practice, this means getting agreement on specific policy positions in a way which is reflected in their future engagements on the topic. For example, when representatives of Oxfam are asked to speak at roundtables or panels, we want them to be advocating for food production standards and restrictions on foreign ownership of agribusiness, not increased access to training and funding for intensive production.

It should be noted that very similar arguments are used to advance the opposite prescriptions. This is reflected in both AFSA and AGRA claiming to represent smallholders’ interests despite opposite approaches. Given that opposite prescriptions could appeal to stakeholders with similar sets of objectives, extensive engagement with adjacent NGOs, particularly those with large platforms and budgets, may be beneficial to explain our arguments fully and ensure we are aligned.

Likewise, it is important to engage with the NGOs which are currently pursuing a different approach. The priority here should be educating NGOs about why the prevailing discourse linking intensive farming to food security and economic development is flawed. We must highlight the importance of pastoral farmers and demonstrate that food security issues are primarily issues of access rather than availability.

Humane Society International produced an excellent report on the implications of industrial farming for developing world food security, and Bryant Research is currently working on a deeper dive on the topic of food security specifically. The goal here should be to demonstrate why intensification can harm food security rather than improve it in a way which is intuitive and memorable.

Currently, there are billions of dollars worth of resources going towards NGO efforts which directly oppose our goals. We may be able to reduce the resources going towards intensification efforts if we are able to reach these NGOs or their donors.

One way of championing animal-friendly investments and innovation is calling on institutional investors to divest from factory farming. Divestment campaigns have been criticised for failing to account for the efficient market hypothesis (i.e. if one actor refuses an investment, the investment becomes undervalued, and other actors are incentivised to invest) and for a lack of empirical evidence that they increase the cost of capital for their target industry.

While it is true that publicly traded companies likely see limited impacts of divestment campaigns on their cost of capital, African agricultural projects are a far more niche investment market, and are therefore likely to be less efficient in this sense. Moreover, this is likely to be an investment market with a higher proportion of impact investors who are investing in Africa specifically to have a positive social impact, and therefore these investors may be more sensitive to divestment campaigns.

Beyond increasing the cost of capital, divestment campaigns aim to remove an industry’s social licence to operate. Successfully announcing divestment from an industry from an institutional investor sends a signal that society no longer views this activity as acceptable. There has been a recent boom in ESG investing which specifically seeks ethical and sustainable investments, and these funds often exclude industries such as tobacco and firearms manufacturing. It seems feasible to add factory farming to this list.

Indeed, there is a significant ongoing call on institutional investors to divest from factory farming, organised by Sinergia Animal. Taking part in this effort, and working with Sinergia to highlight the threat of factory farming in Africa as well as the myths around food security could benefit our campaign doubly.

One issue to be wary of in divestment campaigns, as in some other asks, is the small body problem. Whereas environmentally-motivated campaigns are reasonable to focus on reducing beef and dairy consumption, replacing these with poultry or farmed fish consumption is likely to increase animal suffering significantly due to the higher number and worse treatment of animals involved.

In conjunction with divestments from intensive livestock farming, it is important to encourage investments in alternative proteins developed specifically for the African market.

Existing alternative protein products developed for Western markets are often reliant on refrigerated supply chains and usually carry a significant price premium over animal products. For alternative protein products to work in the African context, they need to be shelf-stable (i.e. not reliant on refrigerated supply chains), affordable, and adapted to African tastes and cuisines.

Alternative proteins are an important part of a broader move away from animal products. There is good evidence that consumer food choices are largely dictated by taste and affordability, so providing high-quality and cheap alternatives to animal products is an important part of shifting diets. This has been referred to as ‘pull factors’ (i.e. pulling people towards alternatives) which complement ‘push factors’ (i.e. pushing people away from animal products).

As well as the existing plant-based African companies discussed in Section 3.3.2., and the international developments covered in 3.2.3., there are African companies working on novel proteins. De Novo Foodlabs is a biotech company in South Africa that uses microbial fermentation to create nutritionally rich dairy products using lactoferrin, a milk protein. The company claims that its product requires 8 times less water than conventional dairy, and 90 times less land.

As well as advocating for factory farming to be added to the blacklist of industries excluded from ESG funds, it makes sense to advocate for alternative protein companies to be added to the whitelist of industries prioritised by ESG funds. Indeed, there are a number of impact investment funds that focus specifically on alternative proteins, but investment in African alternative protein companies is relatively underexplored.

Religion plays a far more important role in African life than in much of the Western world. Almost everybody in our three target countries is some denomination of Christian or Muslim. While adherents to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church avoid animal products on fasting days for about half the year, Muslims follow Halal prescriptions and certifications when it comes to animal product consumption.

Clearly, religious leaders represent an important point of cultural influence on moral issues in Africa. In particular, we highlight some of the influential religious leaders and institutions in Section 3.3.3. Potentially promising avenues here are exploring the growing subsects of Ethiopian Orthodoxy which fast for 250 days rather than 180, and looking at the extent to which pastoral farming vs. factory farming could be called Halal.

As well as setting direct prescriptions on which animal products can be eaten when, religious leaders making pronouncements against factory farming in Africa will help to set the tone amongst the public, and this will be reflected in their purchasing and voting decisions on this issue.

Radio is the most consumed and trusted media in West Africa, particularly in Nigeria where over 200 stations reach a large audience. It is also a cost-effective means to bridge information gaps, and there is good evidence for radio campaigns in Africa having a significant effect on public behaviour. Family Empowerment Media have demonstrated success with a range of radio adverts, talk shows, and other content for increasing contraception use in Nigeria.

Not only is radio highly scalable in that produced features can reach millions of people dozens of times each, it is also more inclusive than written media such as newspapers or billboards as it does not rely on its audience being literate.

Institutional advocacy is an approach favoured by effective animal advocates, primarily because the choices of institutions (companies or governments) affect many more animals than the choice of individuals. Institutional advocacy can take many forms, but typically involves applying positive and negative pressure to a specific company or government in order to get them to adopt some animal-friendly policy in their supply chain or in their offerings. The biggest effective animal charities, notably The Humane League and Sinergia Animal, count institutional outreach as a major part of their programmes.

Recent years have seen an increase in corporate campaigns aimed at improving animal welfare in Africa. The Open Wing Alliance is a global coalition including many African members seeking to end battery cages around the world.

Compassion in World Farming has helped achieve global success in higher welfare commitments, with organisations influencing major chains like McDonald’s, Panera Bread, and Walmart to phase out battery-caged eggs. That said, it is likely that Africa remains relatively neglected in terms of institutional advocacy methods worldwide.

The asks made of institutions can vary depending on the type of institution, and the market or political conditions. In this context, there might be less appetite for asks centred on meat reduction (such as plant-based defaults) and more appetite for asks centred on ensuring animal welfare and a fair supply chain (such as standards and certifications). It is worth noting that standards developed for Western animal welfare situations, such as the Better Chicken Commitment pioneered by The Humane League, may be only partly applicable in an African context. Standards which account for the conditions on African farms and the current level of animal welfare should be developed, such that commitments can be made which are both meaningful in terms of animal welfare and achievable for farmers.

Choice architecture, influencing consumer decisions through strategic design in purchasing environments, holds significant potential for increasing the adoption of plant-based meat. Strategies like product labels, placement in stores, and menu design can subtly guide consumers towards desirable choices. Advocates should encourage local restaurants and retailers to phase out factory-farmed meat, not just by offering more plant-based options, but also by employing choice architecture strategies that promote these products. Providing evidence for positive outcomes from these interventions for the business, as well as for animals, and giving case studies of successful implementations could help persuade businesses to adopt this sort of “nudging”.

African journalists can be mobilised to prioritise animal welfare and alternative protein development through a dual strategy involving media training and a commitment pledge. Media training, facilitated by online accessible guides, will equip journalists with essential information and talking points on the social, human development, and ecological implications of factory farming. Established organisations like Sentient Media currently offer training programs for emerging journalists, and extending accessible guides to existing journalists could enhance their commitment to reporting on these critical issues. The second facet of media engagement involves encouraging writers, researchers, and broadcasters to join a pledge, facilitated by media associations.

Collaborating with broader organisations adds legitimacy, trust, and a potential subscription base. Monthly newsletters, serving as press releases, can highlight local issues related to plant-based tech, alternative protein development, animal welfare, zoonotic diseases, and climate risks from livestock. Furthermore, earned media opportunities, such as news coverage, editorial features, and press releases for strategic surveys, can be powerful incentives for African journalists. Multi-stakeholder collaborations and user-generated content campaigns amplify outreach.

To effectively implement this approach in Ethiopia, Ghana, and Nigeria, collaborating with Sentient Media, known for training journalists globally, is proposed. A tailored proposal should outline country-specific challenges and opportunities, showcasing the potential impact on emerging journalists in addressing animal welfare, zoonotic diseases, public health, and environmental concerns. Emphasising their demonstrated commitment and expertise will strengthen the proposal for a collaboration that empowers local reporters.

Public schools and universities offer a significant opportunity for widespread education and the establishment of new dietary norms. There are already organisations in Africa and globally which provide various resources and sessions to educate young people about the health, environmental, and ethical impacts of their food choices. Influencing young people is likely to be a promising way of influencing the broader culture, and therefore these educational interventions are a potentially promising route to wide societal changes.

The Humane Global Network implements a comprehensive one-day lecture series on animal studies in secondary schools, featuring seminars and videos to promote humane education and proper animal treatment. Interactive components, such as brainstorming sessions, Q&A opportunities, street walks, demonstrations, and youth protests, enhance the program. They have formed crucial partnerships with organisations like the West Africa Centre for the Protection of Animal Welfare in Ghana and the Animal Save Movement’s Nigerian representatives in Lagos.

Successful scalable education programs have been demonstrated by organisations such as The Animal Welfare and Conservation Society (LAWCS) in Liberia, reaching 110 community members and over 10,000 school children across 10 schools. Their programming emphasises a vegan lifestyle and humane education, focusing on kindness, respect, and empathy toward animals, people, and the environment.

Building on successful models in West African countries like Liberia, similar interventions have been implemented in Ethiopia. The Society for the Protection of Animals Abroad engages thousands of Ethiopian children annually through educational programs emphasising compassion and respect for animals. Their hands-on approach at the Bishoftu centre, featuring animal interaction, enhances children’s empathy towards animal needs.

Finally, the Educated Choices Program is a US-based non-profit which creates and distributes educational presentations in the form of online videos for students around the world. Their educational intervention, which is extremely scalable at low cost, has been demonstrated to decrease intentions to consume animal products in several studies, and they have adapted many of their materials for global audiences with a focus on global expansion.

This model, already successful in East and West Africa, holds promise for influencing public sentiment in the three priority countries, Nigeria, Ghana and Ethiopia. Change at the level of government and corporations is ultimately dependent on change at the level of voters and consumers. Reaching large numbers of young people is likely to be a necessary component of achieving the change we are looking for.

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