1. Let Money Talk
As a consumer, you have a great source of power in your back pocket—your wallet. You can choose to buy foods that come from small farms where animals are raised in humane conditions. Buy foods with the Certified Humane Raised & Handled® label administered by Humane Farm Animal Care. This non-profit—supported by more than 36 animal welfare organizations, including the ASPCA—makes every effort to ensure its producers raise animals humanely.
2. Find Out Where Your Food Comes From
Ask questions! Find out whether the products you buy come from a farm that uses intensive confinement practices, or a farm that allows the animals access to fresh air, exercise and good quality food. Are they produced locally or have they been shipped from thousands of miles away? Read labels. Does the product contain artificial growth hormones or genetically engineered ingredients? Look for the Certified Humane Raised & Handled label. Foods with this label come from humane sources that are inspected annually.
3. Ask Your Local Grocers And Restaurants to Offer Humanely Raised Foods
Food purveyors can make a huge difference by buying fresh, locally grown products from small producers. If the dishes you’re dining on and the products you’re buying do not come from humane sources, you can write to local merchants asking for foods with the Certified Humane label.
4. Do a Little Digging
A little research on your own may give you some unexpected answers. The Internet hosts an enormous amount of information about factory farms, from videos to lists of the ill effects that agribusinesses have on our health, the lives of animals and the environment. Get started with our farm animal cruelty glossary.
5. Eat Locally, Think Globally
Support your local food suppliers. You can do this by joining a food co-op, buying food at green markets and finding out whether community-supported agriculture (CSA) is active in your neighborhood. CSA is a way for community members to collectively support local farms by buying shares, working farm shifts and helping with distribution—and you can receive weekly deliveries of fresh dairy, fruits, veggies, eggs, etc.
6. Join the Aspca Advocacy Brigade
Inform your state and federal legislators that you’re disturbed by the inhumane treatment of animals in factory farms and would like to see legislation passed ensuring that all animals raised for food spend their lives in healthy, humane conditions. You can stay up-to-date about current farm animal legislation by joining the ASPCA Advocacy Brigade.
7. Grow Your Own Garden
Planting, growing and harvesting vegetables—even if it’s just a basil plant in a coffee can—might have a surprising effect on the way you view food. Firsthand experience of the nurturing it takes to grow healthy, unrushed food can instill a new knowledge and respect for the process of harvesting food, whether it’s animal or vegetable.
8. Throw Your Virtual Weight Around
Have a website, Facebook page or blog? Get everyone you know on the Web to be conscious about what they’re eating by adding a link to our factory farm section. Explain to them what goes on at factory farms, and let them know they have a choice to buy foods—free of antibiotics and hormones—from farms that raise healthy animals in a humane environment.
9. Hear It Straight from the Horse’s Mouth
Talk to the farmers at your local green market. They’ll shed some light on the ways factory farms are affecting the livelihoods of local and family farms.
10. Take Action In Your Community
There’s strength in numbers! Start a letter-writing campaign. Send a petition around. Organize a local meeting. Find out if there are any groups in your area working against factory farms and volunteer to help out. If there aren't any, get your friends and neighbors together to talk about forming a citizens’ action group, or at least working together to buy foods that come solely from humane sources.