Since 2017, the ASPCA has partnered with Food Animal Concerns Trust (FACT), an organization that works to ensure all food-producing animals are raised in a more humane and healthy manner. FACT’s Fund-a-Farmer grants are provided to farmers who want to obtain or who already hold a meaningful animal welfare certification, as well as to farmers who are improving their animals’ access to pasture.

FACT recently announced its 2024 grantees, awarding 87 Fund-a-Farmer Grants totaling over $251,000 to farmers located in 31 states, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Since 2012, FACT has awarded 695 grants, totaling over $1,361,000 to improve farm animal welfare, expand higher welfare farming practices and support work benefiting an estimated 1,038,600 animals. This year, the ASPCA underwrote 18 of those Fund-A-Farmer Grants, bringing our total of supported farms through FACT to 128.

Providing these grants is an important part of our efforts to build a more humane farming system as an alternative to cruel and unsustainable factory farming. This critical funding can provide for adequate fencing, access to food and water on pasture and in shelter, or costs associated with other higher welfare practices, in turn giving farm animals better lives.

Here are some highlights from the full list of 2024 grantees:

• Coyote Creek Ranch Enterprises, LLC, in Stover, Missouri, was awarded a Fund-a-Farmer grant to create a silvopasture-based adaptive multi-paddock which integrates intentionally planted trees, grasses and grazing for their pigs, hair sheep, dairy and meat goats, and broiler chickens. Their goal is to become G.A.P. 4 certified for their pigs and goats and G.A.P. 5 for their sheep and chickens.

Pigs grazing at Coyote Creek Ranch

• BOTL Farm in Ashford, Connecticut, which is Animal Welfare Approved (AWA)-certified, was awarded a Fund-a-Farmer grant to purchase a glass-front display freezer to increase sales of AWA frozen meat products at their year-round, on-farm store.  

Rams grazing at BOTL Farm

• Sunshine & Sledgehammer Farm, LLC.in Tallahassee, Florida, was awarded a Fund-a-Farmer grant to establish rotational grazing of their Gulf Coast Native Sheep by purchasing portable fencing, food troughs, shelter, watering system and a livestock guardian dog. This award will help them receive AWA certification for their sheep.

Sheep grazing at Sunshine & Sledgehammer Farm

The ASPCA is committed to building more opportunities for farmers across the country so they can transition to higher-welfare systems and improve the lives of their animals. We recognize that many independent farmers often face financial barriers when attempting to transition to certified higher-welfare systems, especially ensuring their farms have the infrastructure necessary to provide animals with continuous access to pasture. And while grant programs such as those led by FACT are a great start, they consistently show that the need far outweighs the resources currently available — FACT received over 600 grant applications from farmers this year alone!

Want to help us fill the gap in funding for more humane farmers? Use our simple form to contact your representatives in Congress and tell them to pass a Farm Bill that supports higher-welfare farming systems.