Food Animal Concerns Trust (FACT)

08/28/2026

As the Communications Manager at FACT, I sort through a lot of farm photos, and let me tell you - there is no end to the cuteness. So this week, as I was poring through yet another folder of adorable goat photos, I decided to dedicate a day here solely to these cuties.

Because we are all here for different reasons - to build a better food system, to protect the environment, to protect animals, to support rural communities, to safeguard public health, on and on- but no matter your reason for being interested in this work, I think we all need more cute animal pictures in our lives to combat all the other noise. So, here you go - Cute Animal Fridays starts now. First up is this goat friend from BOTL Farm in Ashford, CT.

Do you have an adorable picture of your humanely raised farm animal you want to share? Drop it in the comments or send me a message!

08/27/2026

Do you know how to set your prices for your pastured poultry products to make sure you pay yourself and make a profit?

Join FACT next Tuesday, September 1, at 1 p.m. for our free webinar, Profitable Pastured Poultry Production. We’ll explore practical strategies for building a successful pasture-based poultry enterprise that works for both your farm and your bottom line.

🐓 Free to attend
📅 Tuesday, September 1
⏰ 1 p.m.

Register today https://www.foodanimalconcernstrust.org/webinar-archive/profitable-pastured-poultry-production

08/26/2026

FACT's Safe and Healthy Food Director Steven Roach is quoted throughout a new Civil Eats article examining the FDA’s updated approach to assessing the risks of antibiotic use in animal agriculture.

Steven welcomed the FDA's long-awaited update, but emphasized that recognizing a greater risk is not enough if it doesn’t change how antibiotics are used on farms.

“For someone working in it, it’s really frustrating because we have to push really hard for these little things," he shared.

Steven also cautioned that while the FDA’s recent actions are important, their real-world impact will likely be small. The bigger, long-overdue step is ending the routine use of medically important antibiotics in animals that aren’t sick.

Read Steven’s insights and the full story from Civil Eats:
https://civileats.com/2026/08/13/fda-finalizes-new-way-to-assess-risks-of-antibiotics-in-animal-agriculture/

08/24/2026

Pasture-based farmers are building a better food system, but the policies shaping agriculture are written without their voices at the table.

That’s why FACT and ASPCA helped create the FACE Ag Network: the first national farmer network focused on policy solutions that protect animals, people and the land.

FACE brings together pasture-based farmers and ranchers to advocate for fair funding, competitive markets, and a more humane, resilient farming system. Free membership includes:

📣 Advocacy and media training
🏛️ Timely policy updates and opportunities to take action
🌱 Continuing education and funding opportunities
🤝 Connection with fellow pasture-based farmers at virtual and in-person events

Industrial agriculture has powerful advocates. Independent farmers deserve a powerful, collective voice too. If you're a pasture-based farmer, join us at faceag.org.

08/22/2026

🚨 NEW REPORT: McDonald’s, Subway and Taco Bell failed to honor their promises to reduce or even end the routine use of medically important antibiotics in their beef supply by 2025.

For Serving Up Superbugs Revisited, FACT, the Keep Antibiotics Working Coalition and U.S. PIRG Education Fund examined the companies’ websites and public communications and directly asked corporate leadership for updates. We found no evidence that any of the three fulfilled its commitment.

Meanwhile, FDA data show that sales of medically important antibiotics for use in animal agriculture jumped 16% from 2023 to 2024.

That matters because routinely giving these lifesaving medicines to animals that aren’t sick helps fuel antibiotic-resistant “superbugs,” making infections harder and sometimes impossible to treat.

These fast-food giants have enormous power to influence how beef is produced. It’s time for them to keep their promises and use it.

Read the full report: https://pirg.org/resources/serving-up-superbugs-revisited/

08/20/2026

Most farmers are proud of their work and happy to tell you about it. Buying local means you get to have a relationship with the person who grows your food. Lean into that!

08/16/2026

September’s webinar lineup is here! 🐓☕️

Whether you’re looking to strengthen your pastured poultry operation or reach more customers, these two free webinars are packed with practical ideas for your farm:

🐔 Profitable Pastured Poultry Production
Learn how to make pasture-based poultry work financially without compromising animal welfare. Tuesday, September 1st at 1pm EST.

🛒 ASPCA® ShopKind™: A New Way to Connect with Consumers
Explore a new platform designed to help welfare-conscious shoppers find farmers raising animals more humanely. Tuesday, September 15 at 1pm EST.

Grab a cup of coffee, pull up a chair, and join us! Both webinars are free, but registration is required.

🔗 Learn more and register: https://www.foodanimalconcernstrust.org/webinars

08/14/2026

More than 15,000 cattle have reportedly died in U.S. feedlots this summer as extreme heat and humidity make already stressful conditions deadly.

Cattle have few functional sweat glands, so they depend heavily on their surroundings to stay cool. But in crowded feedlots, shade may be limited, airflow restricted, and bare ground hotter than the surrounding air. Large-bodied cattle bred for maximum production can face even greater risk.

Pasture-based systems can offer cattle more of what they need as temperatures rise: room to spread out, cooler vegetated ground, access to shade, and the freedom to graze during cooler parts of the day.

Climate change is turning up the heat. We can’t keep raising cattle as if nothing has changed.

Our latest blog looks at why extreme heat is so deadly in feedlots and why a shift toward pasture-based farming matters for animals, farmers, and the climate. https://www.foodanimalconcernstrust.org/blog/cattle-are-dying-in-record-numbers-this-summernbsp

08/09/2026

FACT's free webinar series is back for another season, and this lineup has something for pastured farmers at every stage, from pricing your products right to actually landing the grants that keep your operation growing.

First up on September 1, Profitable Pastured Poultry Production, tackles a problem more farmers have than they'd like to admit: pricing guesswork. The session introduces two new calculator tools, one for eggs and one for broilers, that let you plug in your actual costs and get a real number to charge, instead of eyeballing it or copying what everyone else charges.

Two weeks later, on September 15, the ASPCA joins FACT to unveil ShopKind™, a new tool built to connect consumers directly with farms and retailers offering certified, outdoor, or pasture-raised meat, eggs, and dairy. This one is great for both farmers and consumers.

Check out the lineup for the next couple of months: https://www.foodanimalconcernstrust.org/webinars

08/07/2026

Iowa has more pigs than people, but fewer and fewer farmers.
Over the past 20 years, the number of Iowa hog farms has dropped by roughly half, even as hog production climbed by 20 million head. It's the result of a system built around contract growing, where a handful of multinational companies own the pigs, the feed, and the medicine, while farmers take on the debt, the labor, and the risk.

Anna Pesek is one of the independent farmers still standing outside that system. She is also farmer FACT has worked with on numerous occasions - we’re big fans. At Over the Moon Farm in Eastern Iowa, she and her family own their hogs and poultry start to finish, which means the dollars they earn actually stay local and support her rural community.

And there's a bigger reason this matters for every Iowan, not just farmers: water. Iowa's factory farms- the massive industrial hog barns at the center of this system- produce over 100 million tons of manure a year, much of it spread on cropland. That runoff is a major reason Iowa's rivers now rank among the most nitrate-polluted in the country, and it's linked to rising cancer rates in a state that already has the second-highest rate of new cancer cases in the U.S. On the flipside, independent, pasture-based farms like Pesek's operate at a much smaller scale, with far less concentrated waste.

That's the backdrop for what's happening in Congress right now. Buried in the 2026 Farm Bill is something called the "Save Our Bacon Act." As an independent and humane farmer, Pesek is vehemently opposed to SOB. It would strike down state rules (like California's Prop 12) that reward farmers who raise animals more humanely, at lower density. The real winners, she argues, would be the same giant meatpacking companies that already run the show, and whose scale of operations are part of what's fouling Iowa's water.

Iowans oppose the Save Our Bacon Act nearly 2-to-1, and separately, 82% say they'd be more likely to vote for a candidate who makes clean water a priority.
📖 Full Anna’s full op-ed :

Independent farmers across the country are speaking out against the Save Our Bacon Act, which lawmakers could include in this week’s farm bill markup.