Food System Solutions

Last week, USDA announced it will extend its pause on loan guarantees for new anaerobic digester projects (specifically through its Rural Energy for America Program) through December 31, 2026.

Farm Forward argues that salmonella in poultry is a system-wide food safety issue driven by poor animal welfare across the supply chain, urging the USDA to expand regulation beyond slaughterhouses and implement stronger, upstream reforms.

Alexandre Family Farm has lost two of the certifications it relied on to market itself as a humane and regenerative dairy. Alexandre can no longer claim the “Certified Humane” and “Regenerative Organic Certified” (ROC) certifications, or use them to enable and perpetuate the abuse of dairy cows that Farm Forward uncovered in the investigation that set this chain of events in motion.

New research suggests aquaculture may worsen overfishing, as farmed fish require feed derived from wild-caught fish.

We were proud to play a part in federal legislation reintroduced today: the Enabling Farmer, Food worker, Environmental, and Climate Targets through Innovative, Values-aligned, and Equitable (EFFECTIVE) Food Procurement Act of 2025. Put forward by Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass) and Congresswoman Alma Adams (NC-12), this legislation would direct and support USDA to leverage billions of dollars to help build a more just, healthy, and sustainable food system.

The United States Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service—the federal agency tasked with protecting the public from foodborne illness—is failing in its mandate by allowing high rates of Salmonella contamination to enter the national food supply.

During the last decade, regenerative agriculture has received a lot of attention as a form of farming that promises environmental benefits compared to industrial farming systems. While regenerative agriculture can improve soil quality and soil microbiome, it is far from being a silver bullet for climate change—and has its own drawbacks.

Farm Forward is proud to announce the launch of a new nonprofit, the Center for Jewish Food Ethics (CJFE)—the culmination of our eight years of incubation and support for farmed animal advocacy in the Jewish community.

A bill has been introduced in the Michigan legislature that would enrich factory farms. Numerous environmental groups, among many others, oppose it.

Farm Forward strongly endorses the Industrial Agriculture Conversion Act, along with over 100 environmental, public health, family farmer, consumer, and animal protection organizations.

In the Vatican Gardens after a private audience with the Pope, author of “Eating Animals” and Farm Forward founding board member, Jonathan Safran Foer, gave a keynote address in response to Pope Francis’s new Apostolic Exhortation, Laudaute Deum.

Farm Forward is collaborating with Yale Law School’s CAFE Law and Policy Lab and several other NGOs to develop innovative policy approaches that can be enacted at the state and municipal level to challenge factory farming practices.

Over the last several years controversy surrounding lab-grown, or cultured, meat has exploded. Ranchers have argued over whether or not it should be considered meat, while vegans have argued about whether or not it should be considered vegan. One thing is clear: lab-grown meat has the capacity to dramatically change the way we eat, and the impacts that our diets have on the world around us.

Farm Forward supports the Industrial Agriculture Accountability Act of 2022. The bill would establish a new office to hold the industry accountable and would implement reforms that would benefit not only meat and poultry workers but also the billions of farmed animals killed every year in the U.S.

A letter from the founder – the third in a three-part series reflecting on the public’s movement toward the will to end factory farming.

A letter from the founder – the second in a three-part series reflecting on the public’s movement toward the will to end factory farming.

A letter from the founder – the first part in a three-part series reflecting on the public’s movement toward the will to end factory farming.

Changing farming takes working with and learning from farmers directly. Internationalizing the fight beyond US borders ensures all farmers everywhere are heard and retain the right to farm according to their values.

United Nations scientists warn that a climate catastrophe is coming, and a leaked UN document urges a shift to plant-based proteins as a strategy to stave off the most dire scenarios.  

Hello again from 2050. We want you to know that your efforts in 2020 to create a more just food system won’t be for nothing.

Brandon Keim, a freelance journalist writing a speculative fiction piece for Anthropocene magazine about how to prevent zoonoses, asked Farm Forward how to create a future free of pandemics and factory farms. 

This historic legislation has the potential to change the conversation about the future of animal agriculture in America.

Today Farm Forward and more than 120 groups launched a week of action against Tyson Foods Inc. (NYSE: TSN) demanding the company address the rising number of COVID-19 cases affecting workers at its chicken, pork, and beef processing facilities.

Racism is ethically intolerable, socially debilitating, and it threatens the moral energies that are the foundation of the movement to end factory farming. 

This week the Stand Up to Factory Farms coalition, a broad coalition of family farming, environmental, food safety, and animal welfare organizations, released a letter calling on the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (ODEQ) to include mega-dairy emissions control in their new rule making plan.

This week Farm Forward, along with a coalition of more than 50 organizations, called on Congress to prevent corporate factory farm companies from receiving COVID-19 relief funds, and instead to direct funds to small and midsize farmers and food chain workers who have been disproportionately impacted by the crisis.  

Author and professor David Clough speaks to classrooms around the world in Farm Forward’s latest Virtual Visit Session. Learn more here.

Farm Forward opposes the proposed bill because it fails to create a rigorous enough process to evaluate the impact of proposed CAFOs or adequately protect Oregon’s land and water, its family farms, or farmed animals from the inherent harms of factory farms.

Stand Up To Factory Farms Coalition and Supporters Say the New Easterday Farms Dairy Would Repeat the Troubled History of Lost Valley 

Institutions are enjoying the ethical and sustainable benefits of the Leadership Circle. Learn about Harvard Business School’s efforts here.

Earlier this year, Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens joined the Leadership Circle by sourcing exclusively certified higher welfare chicken and turkey for their restaurant, Café Phipps.

Join us in welcoming our newest Board Members whose expertise and real world experience advise and progress our organization. Read more.

By purchasing whole animals from local higher welfare farms, UK demonstrates how institutions can improve animal welfare, support local economies, and reduce carbon emissions while maintaining affordable dining operations.

New Executive Director Andrew deCoriolis speaks on his path to his new role, and goals for Farm Forward’s impactful future. Read more here.