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Perdue Farm's Impact on the Global Climate

Along with many other big companies in the U.S., the public has been attempting to hold Perdue Farms accountable with their business practices. As sustainability becomes a more important issue for many people around the world, businesses find themselves having to adjust their practices in an attempt to reduce their carbon emissions. Perdue Farms has been criticized for their animal welfare practices as well as their impact on the global climate.

Animal Welfare

Perdue has been criticized for its factories' lack of adherence to some basic animal-welfare practices. The guidelines that Perdue follows, created by the National Chicken Council, have drawn criticism for allowing birds to be deprived of light, food, and water for long periods, and also for permitting animals to be hung upside-down by their ankles before slaughter. In 2010, the Humane Society of the United States filed a lawsuit against Perdue for violating a New Jersey consumer fraud law by applying the labels "purely all-natural" and "humanely raised" to its products when reasonable consumers would not consider the conditions Perdue chickens are raised in “humane.” The Humane Society filed a similar lawsuit in Florida in April 2013 after an appeal by Perdue to have a similar case rejected was turned down by a federal court. In response, Perdue issued a statement claiming that its practice “exceeds the National Chicken Council guidelines in several areas, including monitoring air quality in the poultry house, video monitoring of live-bird handling areas at the processing plant and USDA audits of producer farms and...hatcheries.”

Pollution

Perdue has also been criticized for allegedly polluting the Chesapeake Bay. One of the issues that comes up is that of untreated manure. Perdue has reported that their chickens generate 3.7 million tons of manure in their factories. This manure overpopulates on their land so, although some of the nutrients are soaked up by the soil, most of it is left untreated. Allegedly, Perdue's untreated manure contaminates Virginia's waterways and thus the Chesapeake Bay. Perdue has been criticized as one of the major contributors into Chesapeake Bay's dead zone. In 2010, the Assateague Coastal Trust sued Perdue for violating the Clean Water Act by allegedly allowing excessive chicken manure to run into the bay. The suit was later won by Perdue in October 2012, after the environmental group failed to establish that the waste runoff was from chicken houses.

Additionally, Perdue Farms owns many processing plants throughout the country. These processing plants have been named as some of the major contributors to pollution in the U.S. For example, it has been reported that the Accomac Processing Plant, owned by Perdue Farms, is the reason for the 1.2 million pounds of excreted toxic pollution. Although it is not known specifically what makes up this pollution, most of their toxic pollution is alleged to be nitrates.

Perdue's Response

In response to these allegations, Perdue Farms recently came out with a collaboration with Bayer CropScience. In 2022, Bayer and Perdue came out with this collaboration in an attempt to reduce carbon emissions while simultaneously restructuring the farming model to encourage more sustainable farming. Bayer's ForGround process focuses on transforming farming practices while incentivizing regenerative practices. They do this by measuring a farmer's carbon footprint and offering different ways to reduce it, and they also offer a tool where farmers can track their carbon footprint in real time. This is an innovative platform that can completely transform the farming industry. Along with this partnership, Perdue Farms launched a section of their website dedicated to the company's social responsibility. It states various numbers and statistics that allows the public to track and see the company's sustainability efforts, and find areas that may need improvement.