The new year began with the first human death in the US from H5N1, also known as avian or bird flu. More than 60 people across the country, mostly workers at dairy or chicken factory farms, have been infected. While most cases were mild, experts warn that it wouldn’t take much for the virus to mutate and spread quickly among humans.
Among animals being raised for food, the outbreak is already massive. Millions of chickens, turkeys, and cows on hundreds of farms have gotten sick. At least 875 herds of cattle in 16 different states have tested positive. In California alone, which has declared a state of emergency over the virus, cows in 645 different dairy herds have tested positive. H5N1 has caused egg prices to skyrocket. But instead of focusing on fixing the root problem, which is the way we raise animals for food, the system just keeps rolling along.
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It’s obvious how we got here: The entire business model of industrial farming creates the perfect conditions for diseases to spread. But instead of stepping in to protect people, the government deferred to Big Ag to handle the outbreak on their own.
What will happen next is unclear. Trump’s history of empowering big business – along with his and the nominee for secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s disdain for public health – are terrifying omens. The CDC has been tracking what it knows about the virus, and recommending actions to take, but Trump’s halting of scientific research and federal public health communications puts this critical information in jeopardy. It’s not just livestock that’s at risk: H5N1 is particularly deadly for felines, and the American Veterinary Medical Association is offering guidance on keeping your house cats safe.
Factory farms are the perfect breeding grounds for diseases like bird flu to spread and get worse. These “farms” are more like huge warehouses crammed with thousands of animals with no sunlight or fresh air. Plus, to make animals grow faster, these farms overuse antibiotics, which creates super-strong germs that are harder to treat and therefore more dangerous to humans.
The way livestock is raised is a big factor in the spread of diseases that originate in animals. Small, independent farms are different: Animals there are healthier because they have space to move, fresh air, and sunlight, which makes it much harder for diseases to spread. Unfortunately, factory farming companies have taken over most of the market, forcing smaller farms to struggle or shut down. They’ve created a system that harms animals, workers, and the environment—and all so they can make more money.
Every day, my organization FarmSTAND sees the extent to which industrial animal agriculture is a system built on a foundation of harm. A handful of ag megacorporations have so much power that they control most of what ends up on grocery store shelves, leaving people with fewer real choices and pushing independent farmers out of business.
But their power is fragile. When we challenge their exploitative business model that relies on harming both people and the planet, their system starts to crack. That’s why we fight in courtrooms and communities to demand accountability and to build a new food system that’s humane, owned by independent farmers, and respects the environment.
Fighting for a better system also means recognizing where the current one fails—and how government inaction continues to make things worse. We fought back when the first Trump administration chose to not hold corporations accountable to any new worker safety standards in response to COVID-19. Things were starting to look familiar by September of last year. In 2020, meatpacking workers were left to fend for themselves and now ag workers are once again in the greatest danger.
By September 2024, it was clear that federal and state responses to the bird flu outbreak were failing. The Biden administration relied on a “self-regulatory" approach that placed no penalty on companies for failing to test livestock. This approach was bound to fail and did: Out of 24,000 farms producing milk for sale in the US, only 24 herds were being tested for avian flu. Last month, the Department of Agriculture (USDA) made milk testing mandatory—long after the virus had spread.
Corporations’ refusal to test—and the government’s refusal to force them—led to undercounting cases among animals and ag workers that allowed Big Ag to keep doing business as usual, and brought us to where we are today. Big Ag’s dominance over the market led to a situation in which farms of all sizes had little incentive to do what needed to be done to identify and contain H5N1. For small farmers, a positive test could mean weeks without selling their product—something many couldn’t afford to do in an already unfair system that props up factory farms, drives overproduction, and pushes milk prices down.
When corporations are given free rein to handle public health crises, they focus on what’s good for their bottom line, not what’s safe for people, animals, or the planet. The government must step up with real public health protections, like mandatory testing, stronger regulations for healthier animals, and better working conditions to stop diseases like bird flu before they spread. But we’ve seen how the Trump administration handled COVID, leaving us at risk. That’s why real change depends on all of us. We need to demand accountability from our elected representatives to push for policies that support independent farmers instead of factory farms. And we need to keep building a food system where profit does not come at the expense of the safety of everyone else.
