The current industrial animal farming system does not work for small farmers or rural communities either. Eurostat has shown that 72% of European livestock products come from Europe’s largest farms, while the total number of livestock farms fell by 2.9 million, nearly a third, between 2005 and 2013. The major trend in the European livestock sector is an ever-increasing concentration of meat and dairy production in fewer and larger farms.
 

On 29 April 2020, 12 MEPs sent a letter to Executive Vice President Timmermans "to use the Farm to Fork Strategy as a chance to recognise the need to reduce the scale of unsustainable, industrial animal farming in Europe and to shift diets away from animal products towards more plant-based diets. To show political leadership and ambition we call on the Commission to recognise this explicitly, and not only to hide behind terms such as ‘more sustainable diets’. We ask you to say it clearly: Europe consumes and produces too much meat and dairy, produces too much industrially, and we intend to reverse this trend and incentivise farmers to transition to new, more plant-based food systems."