In March 2025, residents of As Conchas, Spain, launched a landmark legal case against national and regional authorities over decades of pollution from industrial pig farms. A first-of-its-kind lawsuit that could reach the European Court of Human Rights and have reverberations across Europe.
This guide explores how factory farming continues to harm health, nature, and rural communities across Europe, despite existing EU laws meant to curb these factories’ toxic impacts. Drawing on interviews and studies from Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Poland and Hungary, it examines the legal gaps that allow these harms to persist, and how the law can be used for communities looking to fight back.
Designed as both a resource and a call to action, this publication aims to inform, inspire and support those seeking justice against the impacts of factory farming.
