In a time when the changing climate demands that we bend the curve away from large-scale factory farming, the federal government is heavily investing in a scheme that does little to address the root causes of environmental harm and can even strengthen industrial animal farming: Factory Farm Gas (FFG).

FFG, marketed as “renewable natural gas,” has enjoyed millions of dollars of government subsidies and incentive programs in recent years.

However, to double down on FFG is to double down on a strategy that perpetuates the very system it claims to mitigate—massively confined, industrial animal farming.

Our new reports, “Gaslit by Biogas: Big Ag’s Reverse Robin Hood Effect” and “The ‘Biogas’ Plot: Fueling Factory Farms in the Midwest,” detail this phenomenon and were recently cited in a powerful Vox piece.

What Is Factory Farm Gas?

FFG is gas captured from the massive cesspools of waste generated by concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs)—-factory farms. These operations are touted by industry as exciting renewable energy sources and as a plausible replacement for fossil fuels. They use devices called anaerobic digesters to capture methane gas from cesspools and process the waste into “biogas.” After further refinement, the gas is used to generate electricity and heat.

We don’t deny the basic fact that anaerobic digesters capture methane, nor do we deny the urgency of reducing methane pollution. The problem is that FFG subsidies promote the entrenchment and expansion of industrial animal agriculture while doing nothing to address one of the most significant methane emissions from animals—enteric fermentation.

Despite its greenwashed veneer, FFG doesn’t meaningfully address the harms of factory farming; instead, it obfuscates the pollution problem while funneling public money to some of the worst offenders in industrial agriculture.

Subsidies for Factory Farm Interests

Federal and state subsidies and incentives for FFG have exploded in recent years. In 2024, we received government data via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. Analysis revealed that the 2023 federal value funneled to FFG exceeded $150 million, including grants, low-interest loans, and tax incentives under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). In 2023, programs like the USDA’s Rural Energy for America Program (REAP), which includes funding for truly necessary programs like on-farm wind and solar, saw an over 2,600 percent year-over-year increase in biogas-related grants after the IRA’s passage.Unsurprisingly, private investment is surging alongside these subsidies. FFG companies are cashing in on tax credits and government-backed loans, projecting tens of millions of dollars in benefits in the coming years.

A System by and for the Biggest Polluters

The nature of FFG collection means that some of the worst CAFO practices—like mass animal confinement and manure cesspools—are necessary to make such operations viable. Accordingly, subsidies for FFG disproportionately benefit the largest and most environmentally destructive factory farms. For example:

• Our analysis of three years of state grants shows that dairy digester projects funded by the state of California were “fed” by an average of ~7,500 cows.
• Similarly, in a national dataset, FFG operations “fed” by pig manure reported operations involving between 14,000 and nearly 80,000 animals.

These subsidies not only support the status quo but may actively encourage the expansion of CAFOs and potentially drive out small, independent pasture-based farmers. This “reverse Robin Hood effect” of FFG means public funds are being diverted to the wealthiest agricultural corporations and interests.

Doubling Down on Subsidizing CAFOs

The federal government is doubling down on public incentives for FFG despite major critiques from legislators. In 2024, for example, a coalition of 15 members of Congress sent a letter to then Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack expressing concern over the USDA’s inclusion of FFG in climate-related programs. Their concerns were clear: Incentivizing FFG risks consolidating the agricultural sector and contradicting climate goals. Secretary Vilsack’s response—which Farm Forward received via FOIA request—failed to meaningfully address these concerns while reaffirming a commitment to using manure digesters. Given his past role as a lobbyist for the dairy industry, Vilsack’s support for these subsidies is hardly surprising.

Advocating For Smaller-Scale Farmers Instead

In recent weeks, many farmers, including smaller-scale farmers, have reported that climate funding has been paused following a presidential executive order. Essential initiatives like on-farm solar, which can help smaller farms be more sustainable and offset electricity costs, are up in the air.

Unlike large agribusinesses that can absorb financial setbacks, these farmers operate on much thinner margins, making the sudden funding halt a potential death knell for pro-climate initiatives. Struggling smaller-scale and local farmers would be left holding the bag for the major financial burdens of previously subsidized climate programs they cannot afford on their own.

The new administration has expressed interest in addressing the lack of healthfulness in the food system via its push to “Make America Healthy Again.” One good way to start would be to ensure that promised payments get to smaller-scale farmers. Why? To support ways of raising animals for food far better for our public health than factory farming’s outsized contributions to pollution, the antibiotic resistance crisis, and pandemic risk.

Conclusion

Climate interventions that entrench and expand industrial animal agriculture won’t cut it. Instead of facilitating well over a billion dollars into factory farm interests, we should:

• Invest in plant-based food systems that reduce reliance on industrial animal farming.
• Push for legislation like the Farm System Reform Act to phase out massive, confined factory farming and support independent farmers transitioning to sustainable practices.

FFG is not the climate solution it claims to be. Perhaps there’s a world where certain iterations of biogas could be a meaningful part of a serious climate strategy—it’s not inconceivable. Our concern is not with the notion of using waste for heat and electricity but with how we see it manifesting: massive subsidies for large-scale agricultural polluters, little oversight, factory farm expansion, and industrial profiteering.

By propping up factory farming, the government is perpetuating a system that threatens public health, rural communities, animal welfare, and the very climate it purports to protect. It’s time to redirect these subsidies toward a more humane and sustainable food system.

For more details, see our recent reports and the Vox article:

Gaslit by Biogas: Big Ag’s Reverse Robin Hood Effect

Biogas’ Plot: Fueling Factory Farms in the Midwest

Big Oil and Big Ag are teaming up to turn cow poop into energy — and profits. The math doesn’t add up

 

Three U.S. Senators, working closely with Farm Forward, have urged the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) to strengthen its guidelines on animal welfare and environmental labeling claims, citing widespread deception in food marketing that harms both consumers and independent farmers.

In a letter addressed to USDA Deputy Under Secretary Sandra Eskin, Senators Richard Blumenthal, Cory A. Booker, and Sheldon Whitehouse outlined serious concerns about the current guidelines. The letter notes that the guideline “falls short of what is needed to protect producers and consumers from the unfair misuse of animal welfare and animal-raising claims.” 

Farm Forward, which helped draft the letter, strongly supports these Senators’ efforts to reform labeling practices, and has additionally called for mandatory testing requirements for “antibiotic free” claims.

The Senators emphasized that 78 percent of consumers pay premium prices for products with higher welfare claims, while 85 percent believe the government should establish and enforce clear definitions for animal welfare labels. However, the current guidelines allow major agricultural corporations to exploit these labels without meaningful verification.

The letter quotes an Indiana turkey farmer’s statement to the New York Times of how higher welfare producers like him are disadvantaged by the prevalence of mega-corporations’ misleading labels: “Big Ag has co-opted and bastardized every one of our messages … When they use a fancy label with absolutely meaningless adjectives, there’s just no way we can compete.” Humanewashing labels undermine independent farmers who invest in implementing the actual animal-raising practices they advertise.

The Senators proposed three key recommendations, which Farm Forward endorses:

1. Mandatory third-party certifications for animal welfare claims like “humane” and “humanely raised”
2. Stronger definitions for terms such as “free-range,” “grassfed,” and “pasture-raised”
3. Prohibition of inherently misleading negative claims, such as “hormone-free” labels on poultry products where hormone use is already illegal

In addition, Farm Forward calls for mandatory testing of products labeled as “antibiotic free.” Currently, these labels often rely solely on producers’ unverified claims, which at times blatantly mislead consumers about antibiotic use in meat production. Perdue, which touts their leadership on antibiotic stewardship, vocally opposes both mandatory on-farm testing by the USDA and sensitive testing at slaughterhouses, raising serious questions about their commitment and transparency.

“At a time when our nation is losing independent farms at an alarming rate, we cannot allow mislabeled products to continue tipping the scales in favor of further consolidation,” the Senators wrote, emphasizing that major agricultural corporations cannot be trusted to self-regulate.

With Farm Forward, these senators find self-evident the importance of protecting the integrity of food labelling, ensuring fair competition in the agricultural sector, and providing consumers with accurate information about their food choices.

To supplement the Senators’ letter, Farm Forward—along with Consumer Reports, ASPCA, Compassion in World Farming, Food Animal Concerns Trust (FACT), and George Washington School of Public Health Milken Institute’s Antibiotic Resistance Action Center—wrote a letter to USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) calling for the following actions, among others:

• FSIS should prohibit use of negative antibiotic use claims on products from animals that test positive for antibiotics
• FSIS should require regular testing for all negative antibiotic use claims, not only for new applications but also for companies already approved for these claims and selling in the marketplace
• FSIS should require producers whose product tests positive for antibiotics to demonstrate how they have adequately addressed the root causes of the problem before they are allowed to resume making the claim
• USDA should conduct and report publicly on its own testing for antibiotics on all food-animal species for all products labeled with negative antibiotic use claims
• Following a public comment period and participation from all relevant stakeholders, FSIS should codify minimum standards for all animal-raising claims, rather than continuing to employ incredibly vague definitions that allow a huge spectrum of systems to use the same raising claims, failing consumers and producers alike
• FSIS should require (not simply recommend) ongoing third-party verification to substantiate label claims concerning antibiotic, environmental/carbon, and animal welfare claims
• FSIS should provide financial and technical assistance to small producers to help them access meaningful third-party certification
• FSIS should set clear definitions of environmental-related claims such as “regeneratively raised”, “raised using regenerative agriculture practices”, “sustainably raised”, “carbon neutral”, “low-carbon” and “environmentally responsible”
• FSIS should prohibit the recently approved “Low-Carbon Beef” claim as inherently misleading, since conventional beef production emits more greenhouse gasses than any other food product

Farm Forward will continue to work alongside legislators and other stakeholders to advocate for essential reforms in food labeling practices. Label integrity for environmental, animal raising, and antibiotics claims will help not only the environment, animal welfare, and public health, but also consumers and independent farmers. Having labels that mean what the public believes they mean will be win-win for everyone—at least, everyone who’s not trying to scam the system. We’ve seen recent progress, with the USDA recommending voluntary verification for some label claims. It’s time for USDA to turn those recommendations into requirements.

While we applaud recent investments from the federal government that have finally begun to tackle the climate crisis, the Biden Administration’s hallmark climate legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), massively missed the mark when it comes to bad incentives for agriculture. Instead of prioritizing truly low-carbon regenerative and plant-based agriculture, the IRA includes hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies and tax incentives that giant meat and dairy companies are using to entrench animal factories across rural America.

Today in Washington DC, legislators introduced a new bill that would help address the harms of massive confinement factory farms and invest in sustainable food systems. The Industrial Agriculture Conversion Act (IACA), introduced by Rep. Alma Adams (D-NC) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) offers a positive vision for a future of American farming without massive CAFOs. Farm Forward strongly endorses the IACA and we join more than 100 environmental, public health, family farmer, consumer, and animal protection organizations in doing so.

At a high level, the bill directs the United States Department of Agriculture to provide grants to carry out genuinely climate-smart conservation projects. Specifically, the IACA will create a slate of new tools to enable farmers to build a more sustainable and humane agriculture system. This is a common sense bill that is supported by a significant majority of Americans—according to a survey commissioned by the ASPCA, 82 percent of Americans support the government offering CAFO farmers money to help cover the costs of transitions to more humane systems of agriculture. In that same survey, there was little support for the government’s current policy of reimbursing profitable corporations for mass culling their flocks after bird flu outbreaks (38 percent).

And according to recent polling conducted by Data for Progress on Farm Forward’s behalf, large numbers of Michigan voters reject the idea that state climate policy should be influenced by factory farms and fossil fuel interests.

And that’s what the IACA is about—moving away from financing that helps the factory farming industry.

Among other provisions, the bill:

• Supports converting CAFOs to specialty crop production;
• Supports improvements related to farm animal welfare like access to the outdoors and access to pasture;
• Prevents conservation grants from going to methane digesters and other entrenching technologies.

The Industrial Agriculture Conversion Act is the latest in a series of proposed legislation aimed at building a saner, more sustainable, and humane food system. Bills like the Farm Systems Reform Act and the Industrial Agriculture Accountability Act both, in different ways, would take important steps toward regulating factory farming and reducing its harm. Together these bills offer a bold vision for the future of American agriculture that puts factory farms where they belong—in the rearview mirror.

 

A USDA testing program finds that at least 20 percent of tested cattle samples labeled “raised without antibiotics” or “no antibiotics ever” tested positive for antibiotics. USDA buries findings and reports no punitive action.

Last year, the United States Department of Agriculture launched a sampling project, to test food products labeled with USDA-approved voluntary marketing claims like “raised without antibiotics,” “no antibiotics ever.” The results are in, and the USDA has found antibiotics in at least 20 percent of cattle tested for drugs. Unfortunately, even after confirming that many cattle products are fraudulently labeled antibiotic-free, the USDA will not require meat companies to test and prove the accuracy of their claims. The USDA’s negligence allows large meat companies to profit off of consumers who pay a premium for a product they believe is healthier and more humane, all based on a lie. The USDA’s inaction will hurt farmers and ranchers who raise animals in more humane ways, without the routine use of antibiotics, and who can’t compete against meat companies who cheat.

While the USDA’s disappointing announcement is consistent with its long history of prioritizing big ag over the public, allowing this level of deception to persist in beef without even requiring testing surprised even us. Anything short of requiring testing is good for companies that are cheating and provides yet another example of the USDA’s toothless responses to factory farms’ failures to adhere to common sense standards.

“Increasingly, consumers are looking for products that align with their values, but it’s clear the meat industry is unable or unwilling to meet consumer expectations. Meat companies want to skate by on flimsy marketing claims like ‘sustainable,’ ‘humane,’ and ‘antibiotic free,’ without actually doing the work to ensure a product that meets those standards,” said Farm Forward Executive Director Andrew deCoriolis. “Humanewashing this flagrant usually is the domain of industry, but here the USDA is trying to sell us news that the US beef supply is compromised — and a meaningful percentage actually contaminated — as good news, and even evidence of their trustworthiness. Meanwhile, the USDA won’t even disclose which companies’ products tested positive for antibiotics in their study, so the public remains in the dark and doesn’t know who to trust. With no regulatory action in place to stop this harmful trend, the USDA has basically greenlit meat companies deceptively marketing products and continuing to lie to us.”

“Companies advertising RWA or antibiotic-free labels should implement transparent testing procedures with data made easily accessible to consumers. And the USDA must provide regulations for all findings. The government can’t pass that task off to the private sector because these findings reiterate that industries won’t voluntarily check themselves. It’s up to the USDA to decide that meat companies can’t jeopardize public health to turn a profit.”

Dr. Aaron Gross, founder of Farm Forward and Director of the University of San Diego Center for Food Systems Transformation, added, “Remembering that the USDA has an impossible dual mandate — to both protect consumers and promote Big Ag — helps explain its cowed response to massive deception in the beef industry. The USDA’s data suggests the need for transformation, but instead the agency is helping meat companies continue to deceive the public. Encouraging only voluntary testing amounts to a signal that deceptive labeling is an acceptable business strategy. The USDA’s response is pretending that this highly profitable mislabeling is happening by accident. The pattern suggests the mislabeling is by design.”

###

More than 40 dairy herds in nine states have been infected with the latest strain of H5N1 bird flu. The virus has also infected at least two farmworkers, one in Texas and another in Michigan. We’re even seeing outbreaks in domestic cats and house mice.

The USDA and FDA maintain that dairy milk is safe to consume. Government regulators say pasteurization kills off the virus, though new research finds that commercial pasteurization doesn’t kill all live viruses in milk, meaning there may be live viruses in milk on store shelves. As for unpasteurized dairy products like raw milk, the FDA and USDA recommend not consuming them. Despite this warning, sales of raw milk are increasing. State laws on raw milk vary widely, and though the FDA is urging states to ramp up testing and restrictions, few states have limited the sale of raw milk meaning thousands of consumers are at risk of exposure to bird flu in dairy products.

The most upsetting part of the current bird flu outbreak is that it’s not a surprise. Farm Forward has been sounding the alarm for years that factory farms are petri dishes for zoonotic diseases. On factory farms—which account for 99 percent of animals raised for food—animals are overwhelmingly genetically uniform, immunocompromised, and crammed together by the tens of thousands. Following the emergence of COVID-19, Farm Forward board members Jonathan Safran Foer and Aaron Gross warned in an April 2020 op-ed in the Guardian of the need to end the industrial chicken industry as a measure to prevent future bird flu pandemics. Now that bird flu has spread to more than 200 wild animals, including seals, bears, and mountain lions, and has spread to domestic and farmed animals such as cats and dairy cows, further spread of bird flu seems inevitable. If the virus jumps to pigs, the chances of a wider human outbreak increase substantially.

So why isn’t more being done to protect the public from dangerous farming practices? Simple. Factory farm owners are incentivized by profits, and the simple-but-scary fact is that it’s more profitable to raise animals in ways that are dangerous to public health, harm animals, and pollute the environment. And government bodies are mostly unwilling to use their authority to meaningfully regulate industrial animal farming, instead seeing their role as protecting the financial interests of agribusiness.

Take testing. The federal government has mandated testing only of lactating dairy cows traveling across state lines. Funds have been allocated to pay farm owners to test dairy herds, but officials say they can’t mandate broader testing. And farmworkers who get tested are eligible to receive $75 each—but that’s hardly an incentive, as testing positive would require workers to visit a clinic, then stay home from work. Many of them can’t afford to do either.

Instead of getting at the root cause by better regulating farms, the federal government is scrambling to get ready for the now-inevitable spread of bird flu; they’re preparing 4.8 million doses of a bird flu vaccine for humans in case the virus jumps again.

Maddeningly, the federal government is also reimbursing giant farming corporations for cleaning up the mess they themselves caused. Farms kill animals en masse and get paid for it. Our own investigation found the USDA has paid $715 million to companies like Tyson and Jennie-O to compensate for losses from bird flu outbreaks that those very companies largely caused. “These payments are crazy-making and dangerous,” said Andrew deCoriolis, Farm Forward’s executive director. “Not only are we wasting taxpayer money on profitable companies for a problem they created, but we’re not giving them any incentive to make changes.”

The best treatment for a pandemic is preventing it before it starts—by decreasing the size of animal farms, reducing crowding, and improving the genetics of the animals. These steps are critical in addressing the underlying conditions that lead to pandemics like the one we’re now facing.

 

 

 

Update: December 5, 2023: The EFFECTIVE Food Procurement Act has been assigned bill numbers: S.3390 in the Senate and H.R.6569 in the House of Representatives.

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In anticipation of the 2024 Farm Bill, we are proud to play a part in introducing new federal legislation that would leverage billions of dollars of food spending by USDA to help build a more just, healthy, and sustainable food system. 

Introduced by Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass) and Congresswoman Alma Adams (NC-12), the Enabling Farmer, Food worker, Environmental, and Climate Targets through Innovative, Values-aligned, and Equitable (EFFECTIVE) Food Procurement Act would direct and support USDA to shift toward values-aligned food procurement. The legislation would benefit workers, farmed animals, and the environment alike, and has been endorsed by more than 200 organizations.  

The vast majority of USDA’s food purchases are not congruent with its own values-based goals and policy objectives like mitigating climate change, conserving natural resources, building resilient supply chains, supporting socially disadvantaged producers and worker well-being, and expanding healthy choices for schools and its other program beneficiaries. 

The EFFECTIVE Food Procurement Act would change that. The Act was inspired by a new Federal Good Food Purchasing Coalition (FGFP Coalition), of which Farm Forward is a founding member. The FGFP Coalition grew out of the Good Food Purchasing Program (GFPP), a flexible metric-based framework that encourages large institutions to direct their buying power toward six core values including equity, nutrition, valued workforce, animal welfare, environmental sustainability, and community-based economies. For years, we have led the team that updates GFPP’s animal welfare value area. As GFPP has been implemented by dozens of cities, municipalities, and school districts across the country, we have seen the outsized role that the federal government plays in food purchasing. This year we joined with other GFPP leaders in a concerted effort to redirect those federal food dollars, almost 40 percent of which in 2022 was spent on animal products. In 2022, The biggest food purchaser in the federal government, USDA, spent more than four billion dollars on commodity foods for school districts, food banks, low-income seniors, foreign aid, and Indian reservations. 

The USDA primarily purchases from a handful of agricultural megacorporations, many of which have repeatedly violated labor, environmental, and animal welfare laws. For example, Tyson Foods accounted for 43 percent of USDA poultry spending in 2022, despite incurring more than 30 workplace and environmental violations within three years of receiving their contract, and USDA suspending program personnel at Tyson due to what USDA termed “egregious violation of the humane handling requirements” that very year. 

The EFFECTIVE Food Procurement Act would shift USDA away from evaluating bids based only on cost to evaluating bids based on multiple values, including equity, worker well-being, climate mitigation, animal welfare, resilient supply chains, and nutrition. While increasing transparency in USDA spending, the Act would (among other things) measure and reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with USDA’s procurement, provide grants and technical assistance to small and socially disadvantaged producers and businesses, and shift USDA’s purchases of animal products from the lowest common denominator to more pasture-raised livestock, more farms participating in independent animal welfare certification programs, and more plant-based proteins.

The social and environmental benefit of such shifts would be staggering. Earlier this year the FGFP Coalition produced a report on federal food purchasing with findings including: 

• The USDA is the largest direct food purchaser in the federal government, and combined with the Department of Defense accounts for 90 percent of direct federal food purchases, which totaled more than $9 billion in 2022.
• The USDA Foods Program had a carbon footprint of more than 19 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent between the school year of 2018 and 2019, equal to the annual emissions from 4.1 million cars.
• Replacing 25 percent of federal animal product purchases with plant-based sources of protein would spare 26,736,641 animal lives, make available 9.3 million acres of land (equal to the size of Maryland), save $248 million, and reduce 1.6 million tons of Co2e annually—more than the equivalent of taking every passenger vehicle in Washington, D.C. and Alaska out of commission, all year, every year.

On November 7, Farm Forward and other representatives of the FGFP Coalition met with Senator Richard Blumenthal’s (D-CT) office, and we’re pleased that Senator Blumenthal has now signed on as the bill’s Senate cosponsor. 

You may be interested to review the FGFP Coalition’s report on how we could better leverage federal food purchasing for climate, environmental, and social benefits, and the Civil Eats article about the Act. But most importantly: all U.S. residents can contact their senators and representatives to ask that they support the EFFECTIVE Food Procurement Act. Just look up their phone numbers on the Senate and House directory, and call them to ask your Senators to support S. 3390, Senator Edward Markey’s EFFECTIVE Food Procurement Act, and your Representative to support H.R. 6569, Congresswoman Alma Adams’s EFFECTIVE Food Procurement Act.

Good food purchasing at the federal level is the next step in how we are building a better future for American workers, communities, ecosystems, and farmed animals. Together, we are building a future free of factory farms.

Updated February 23, 2023: A federal court ruled that undercover investigations and whistleblowing activities are protected under the First Amendment—effectively rejecting North Carolina’s “Anti-Sunshine” ag-gag law. This ruling marks a turning point in the nationwide movement to overturn unconstitutional ag-gag laws. Read more here.

Updated June 16, 2020: MAJOR VICTORY! On Friday, in a stunning decision, a federal judge struck down North Carolina’s “Ag-gag” law, ruling that several of its provisions are unconstitutional and violate the First Amendment. See the full decision here.

Donate now to help us strike down another unconstitutional ag-gag law!

Updated September 3, 2019: Today Public Justice on behalf of Farm Forward and a coalition of other plaintiffs filed a motion for summary judgement asking the Court to enjoin North Carolina from enforcing the “Anti-Sunshine Law” and declare it unconstitutional. This “Ag-gag” law is meant to punishes anyone—employees, journalists, and even individual community members—who investigate the practices of a property owner or employer to bring illegal or dangerous behavior to light. This Ag-gag law is especially egregious because of the all encompassing nature of the language used preventing any kind of whistleblowing about federal, state or private industry.

Updated June 5, 2018: The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled on June 5, 2018 that our federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the North Carolina anti-sunshine law can move forward, reversing the decision of the federal district court.

Updated July 20, 2016: Earlier this month in an attempt to fight an ag-gag lawsuit, North Carolina’s Attorney General and the Chancellor of the University of North Carolina opposed the filing of an Amicus Brief by a coalition of plaintiffs including Farm Forward. They are attempting to prevent the court from considering the expert opinion of two scholars in constitutional law and federal procedure.

Around the nation law professors seeking to provide an academic perspective on a legal question before the court routinely make such contributions. In the Idaho ag-gag case, the state recently accepted an Amicus Brief submitted with expert opinion. This news highlights the dangerous and unparalleled nature of North Carolina’s opposition.

Farm Forward reached out to Professor Jack Preis, one of the constitutional law experts to provide an opinion in the North Carolina Amicus Brief, to ask him about the opposition. He stated, “UNC seems to believe that I am an apologist for the animal rights movement. But the reality is that I have no dog in this fight. My job is to tell the truth about matters of federal jurisdiction, and whether I write an amicus brief depends chiefly on what the truth is, not on who it will help.”

Our fight in North Carolina is just beginning.

For immediate release: February 25, 2016

Greensboro, NC  — Today Farm Forward joined a federal lawsuit to strike down North Carolina’s ag-gag law, which went into effect January 1 despite Governor McCrory’s veto. The law punishes whistleblowers for exposing animal abuse, human rights violations, and anything else that employers wish to hide from the public.

After defeating a similar law in Idaho, which violated both the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution, Farm Forward’s General Counsel Michael McFadden says the group is ready to take on another challenge.

“This is the kind of law you’d expect in North Korea, not North Carolina,” says McFadden. “Ag-gag protects abusers and punishes citizens for exercising their right to free speech. These laws have no place in America.”

Farm Forward has long been a watchdog of the American food system, from its new project BuyingPoultry, which lets consumers find higher-welfare poultry products and plant-based alternatives, to its in-depth assistance on the book and upcoming documentary film Eating Animals, which is being produced by Academy Award Winner Natalie Portman. Farm Forward also hosts a petition at ag-gag.org that has been signed by tens of thousands of people nationwide and remains a cornerstone of the movement to overturn ag-gag laws.

Farm Forward is part of a coalition of plaintiffs in this lawsuit that includes the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Animal Legal Defense Fund, Center for Food Safety, Farm Sanctuary, Food & Water Watch, Government Accountability Project, and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. The plaintiffs’ joint statement is as follows:

North Carolina’s Anti-Sunshine Law seriously hinders North Carolinians’ ability to know the truth about misconduct, mistreatment and corruption happening in virtually every industry, including nursing homes, factory farms, financial institutions, daycare centers and more. It’s an extreme law forced on citizens over a governor’s veto by lawmakers who bowed to pressure from corporate lobbyists. This law blatantly violates citizens’ rights to free speech, a free press, and to petition their government, and violates the Equal Protection Clause. It places the safety of our families, our food supply, and animals at risk, and it attempts to bully and threaten those working for transparency, free speech and the public good. Our lawsuit is being brought for the sake of the health and safety of all citizens of North Carolina. We are confident the law will be found unconstitutional and that a victory in North Carolina will deter other state legislatures from repeating North Carolina’s mistake.

Donate now and help us strike down another unconstitutional ag-gag law!

Full Press Release PDF available here

Farm Forward has joined a consumer class action lawsuit against Whole Foods alleging that the retail giant is deceiving shoppers about beef products in its stores. Since 1981, Whole Foods has claimed that all of the animals within its supply chain are raised without antibiotics, but an independent laboratory found antibiotic residue in “antibiotic free” meat purchased from a California Whole Foods store. Antibiotic free meat can cost as much as 20 percent or more than conventional meat, and surveys show 75 percent of consumers are willing to pay more for it. The use of subtherapeutic antibiotics has implications for animal welfare and public health.

In April 2022, Farm Forward released results of a program that tested Whole Foods meat for antibiotic residues. Among other findings, Farm Forward found residue of an antibiotic that can be used to promote growth in cattle in a product labeled “Organic” and “antibiotic free.” Factory farms that provide meat to retailers like Whole Foods depend on antibiotics to keep animals alive in filthy, crowded conditions. Farm Forward’s findings were bolstered by a peer-reviewed study published in Science which presents empirical evidence that a significant percentage—up to 22 percent—of cattle within the Animal Welfare Certified program, which is used by Whole Foods, have come from feedyards where testing suggests antibiotics were administered routinely.

“We have hard evidence not only that meat on Whole Foods shelves could be marketed deceptively as antibiotic free, but that the problem extends to the entire industry,” says Andrew deCoriolis, Executive Director of Farm Forward. “Industry insiders know that meat is being marketed deceptively as “antibiotic free.” Rather than thoroughly test to ensure the accuracy of its own antibiotic claims, Whole Foods has profited while deceiving its customers.”

Humanewashing by Whole Foods has succeeded in persuading shoppers that Whole Foods sells nothing but the best, and that the farms supplying meat to Whole Foods provide significantly better living conditions than they typically do. Farm Forward wants Whole Foods to verify that subtherapeutic and growth-promoting antibiotics are not used in any aspect of its meat supply chain, and to be honest with the public about which claims the retailer can, and cannot, guarantee. Additionally, Farm Forward wants retailers implicated in profiting from consumer deception to fund an independent watchdog agency that will work in consumers’ interest to assist supermarkets in fighting meat industry misinformation.

Farm Forward has had close ties with Whole Foods in the past and attempted to address these problems collaboratively prior to launching our investigation. John Mackey, founder and co-CEO of Whole Foods, was a member of Farm Forward’s board of directors from our inception in 2007 until 2018, and Farm Forward Chairman, Dr. Steve Gross, was integral in the creation of Global Animal Partnership—the animal welfare standards setting body that Mackey conceived. After a decade of recommending select Animal Welfare Certified meat from Whole Foods as a better alternative to conventional, uncertified products found in typical grocery stores, Farm Forward raised concerns that the grocer was marketing factory farmed products deceptively as Animal Welfare Certified, humane, and antibiotic free. When no action was taken, Farm Forward resigned from GAP’s board and began testing products purchased from Whole Foods stores.

• October 2, 2020 — Farm Forward publishes a blog, “Why We Resigned from the Board of the Nation’s Largest Animal Welfare Certification,” explaining our April 2020 departure from the board of Global Animal Partnership (GAP), the certification used by Whole Foods Market, after more than a decade of service. In it, we explain that, despite years of effort, the certification had become a marketing tool for factory farming corporations instead of meaningfully raising the bar for animal welfare.
  (Posted to timeline 8/25/22)
• December 30, 2020 — Farm Forward’s report, “ The Dirt on Humanewashing,” reveals how the certified “better” meat dominating grocery shelves, including Whole Foods’ Animal Welfare Certified  meat, come from genetically modified animals who suffer in filthy, cruel conditions.
  (Posted to timeline 8/25/22)
• May, 2021 — Farm Forward receives a positive result from National Organic Program and Global Animal Partnership (GAP) Animal Welfare Certified beef purchased from Whole Foods Market for monensin sodium, a growth-promoting antibiotic ionophore prohibited by both programs.
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• September, 2021 — Farm Forward commissions a survey from YouGov of more than 1,000 U.S. consumers and their beliefs about meat labels. It finds that 25 percent incorrectly believe that “antibiotic-free” means animals are raised on pasture, and 32 percent incorrectly believe that “antibiotic-free” indicates high welfare. Additionally, nearly half of consumers expect GAP’s Animal Welfare Certified label to guarantee that animals are not given antibiotics.
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• February, 2022 — Farm Forward receives eight additional positive results for antiparasitic drugs in cattle and turkey products sold at multiple Whole Foods stores and chicken products from Trader Joe’s. Four GAP-certified beef products purchased from Whole Foods tested positive for fenbendazole; one GAP-certified turkey product from Whole Foods tested positive for clopidol; and two “antibiotic-free” chicken products from Trader Joe’s tested positive for fenbendazole. These antiparasitic drugs are banned by the National Organic Program, but not by GAP. In our testing, these antiparasitic drugs did not appear in Certified Organic products.
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• February, 2022 — Experts consulted to confirm the implications of each of the positive results for the claims made by the retailers and certifications implicated by the findings. Farm Forward shares its findings with a Washington Post reporter investigating antibiotic use in animal agriculture.
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• March 30, 2022 — Farm Forward’s blog, “Whole Foods’ ‘Better’ Chicken Isn’t What You Think,” highlights how GAP’s new genetic welfare standards, framed as “reinvent[ing] the modern day broiler chicken,” still allow genetic modification for fast growth in ways that are known to produce leg deformities, muscle myopathies, and weakened immune systems.
  (Posted to timeline 8/25/22)
• April 5, 2022 — Farm Forward publishes the results of its drug testing program and launches a consumer petition targeting Whole Foods. Emails on behalf of petition signers are sent to Whole Foods on a rolling basis.
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• April 5, 2022 — Farm Forward issues a press release about the results of its drug testing program.
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• April 7, 2022 — Science publishes a peer-reviewed study co-authored by researchers at George Washington University’s Antibiotic Resistance Action Center (ARAC) and an antibiotics testing company, FoodID, revealing that residues of medically important antibiotics are pervasive in animals marketed as “antibiotic-free” and certified by GAP.
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• April 7, 2022 — ARAC publishes a press release on Phys.org. Arizona radio station KJZZ is the first to cover the story.
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• April 7, 2022 — The Washington Post posts an article about the article published in Science, affirming Farm Forward’s findings. Though Farm Forward was interviewed extensively for the story, a decision was made by the paper just before the article’s publication to omit any mention of Farm Forward, including Farm Forward’s test results and its former role on GAP’s Board of Directors. The article included an inaccurate assertion from a Whole Foods representative that Whole Foods had “no reason to believe that the cattle tested in this study ended up in products in [its] stores.” Whole Foods’ leadership was informed that Farm Forward had found antibiotic residue in meat sold on its shelves prior to the story’s release.
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• April 7, 2022 — Farm Forward publishes a blog titled “More drugs found in ‘antibiotic-free’ meat certified by Global Animal Partnership,” discussing the Science study’s findings, which corroborate the results of Farm Forward’s own testing.
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• April 7, 2022 — Farm Forward submits a letter to the editor to the Washington Post including some of the data that was omitted from the article. The LTE is not run.
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• April 8, 2022 — Farm Action was joined by the American Grassfed Association in issuing a press release, calling on the USDA to investigate Whole Foods’ “antibiotic-free” claims in the wake of Farm Forward’s and the Science study’s findings.
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• April 8, 2022 — Articles appear in The Hill, Consumer Reports, and WebMD, calling into question “antibiotic-free” claims based on the Science data but excluding Farm Forward’s findings.
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• April 8, 2022 — Industry outlet AgWeb is the first to cover Farm Action’s request to the USDA along with Farm Forward’s data.
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• April 12, 2022 — Forbes covers the Science study, highlighting that “more than a quarter of the cattle sampled from the Global Animal Partnership welfare certification program, used by Whole Foods and hundreds of other retailers and meat purchasers, had at least one positive test.”
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• April 12, 2022 — Food Safety News writes about the Science study and Farm Forward’s findings, reiterating Whole Foods’ claim that “no retailer is identified by the study,” despite Farm Forward’s results coming from meat purchased at Whole Foods.
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• April 14, 2022 — Farm Forward’s petition reaches 1,000 signatures.
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• April 14, 2022 — Farm Forward publishes a blog titled “The Drugs Farm Forward Found Hiding in Your Meat,” detailing the methodology and implications of its drug testing results.
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• April 14, 2022 — Sentient Media publishes an article on Farm Forward’s data entitled “Antibiotic Residue Found in Antibiotic-Free Meat at Whole Foods.”
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• April 15, 2022 — Farm Forward’s Executive Director, Andrew deCoriolis, sends a letter to supporters and other stakeholders, including Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, about the drug testing results.
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• April 16, 2022 — Farm Forward’s video about the antibiotics found in Whole Foods’ meat was played 50,000 times between Facebook and Twitter.
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• April 20, 2022 — Farm Forward publishes a blog titled “How can “antibiotic-free” meat contain antibiotics? Simple: Nobody’s watching,” highlighting the absence of any testing to verify “antibiotic-free” claims, while companies charge premiums on factory farmed products with these labels.
  (Posted to timeline 4/20/22)
• May, 2022 — Farm Forward submits an ad calling Whole Foods’ “no antibiotics, ever” promise into question to Seattle and Austin airport and public transit agencies (hometowns of Whole Foods and its parent, Amazon, respectively) in advance of Amazon’s annual shareholder meeting. Officials (including Seattle’s Sound Transit, which maintains a financial relationship with Amazon) reject the advertisement because of its “controversial” nature.
  (Posted to timeline 7/5/22)
• May 24, 2022 — Farm Forward issues a formal appeal of the agencies’ decisions on First Amendment grounds, explaining that placing the PSA on publicly operated spaces like the Seattle and Austin airports and public transit would provide an important public service.
  (Posted to timeline 7/5/22)
• May 25, 2022 — Farm Forward runs its ad during Amazon’s shareholder meeting on cell phones in Austin and Seattle, as well as in the hometown cities of Amazon’s top 10 shareholders, reaching over 90,000 people, and publishes a blog entitled, “Censored: Ad Exposing Whole Foods’ Antibiotics Deception.”(Posted to timeline 7/5/22)
  
• March 30, 2023 — In collaboration with the Animal Welfare Institute, Farm Forward consults with Senator Blumenthal’s (D-CT) office to encourage them to take action with the USDA to protect consumers from humanewashing, leading to a letter being sent to the USDA by four senators asking to review the integrity of animal welfare claims like “humanely raised” and “sustainably raised” on meat products.
  (Posted to timeline 9/22/23)
• June 14, 2023 — The USDA announces changes to the guidelines meat companies must follow if they want to label their products as “humanely raised,” “free range,” or “raised without antibiotics.” Farm Forward praises this step in the right direction while acknowledging its limitations. (Posted to timeline 9/22/23)
  
• July 2, 2023 — Tyson Foods announces it will reintroduce certain antibiotics to its chicken supply chain and would drop the “no antibiotics ever” tagline from Tyson-branded chicken products. (Posted to timeline 3/21/24)
• July 25, 2023 — A federal judge in California rules that the consumer protection lawsuit alleging Whole Foods Market falsely advertised its beef as “no antibiotics, ever” can proceed. The judge also denied Whole Foods’ motion to stay discovery, which opens the door to Whole Foods turning over key information about their suppliers. (Posted to timeline 9/22/23)
• August 15, 2023 — Farm Forward sends a letter to the Deputy Undersecretary of Food Safety at the USDA, Sandra Eskin, recommending ways in which the USDA can further improve meat labeling and protect consumers from misleading claims and certifications. (Posted to timeline 9/22/23)
• August 25, 2023 — Farm Forward releases the results of a major new consumer survey conducted with Data for Progress. The survey underscores the reality that consumers have high expectations for animal welfare that meat companies and retailers are not yet meeting and that companies risk eroding the trust of their consumers if they continue to humanewash. The Data for Progress report is covered in Politico’s agricultural reporting. (Posted to timeline 9/22/23)
• September 7, 2023 — Agricultural research outlet Ambrook Research publishes a comprehensive article detailing the failures of antibiotic-free labeling. The piece quotes Farm Forward’s Executive Director, Andrew DeCoriolis, throughout. (Posted to timeline 9/22/23)
• Early 2024 — The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) completes its sampling program designed to assess antibiotic residues in cattle marked as “raised without antibiotics. The testing program was initiated after Farm Forward’s joint letter to the USDA was sent last year. (Posted to timeline 3/21/24)
• Late February 2024 —Panera Bread began removing in-store signs and artwork mentioning “No Antibiotics Ever,” among other animal welfare claims, as part of a policy shift ahead of its planned IPO. Loosening their animal welfare standards is estimated to save them $21 million. (Posted to timeline 3/21/24)
• March 25, 2024 — Chick-fil-A abandons its ‘no antibiotics ever’ chicken promise, and will shift to the ‘No Antibiotics Important To Human Medicine’ designation. (Posted to timeline 4/2/2024)
• August 29, 2024 – Farm Forward responds to a USDA testing program that found that at least 20 percent of tested cattle samples labeled “raised without antibiotics” or “no antibiotics ever” tested positive for antibiotics. USDA buries the findings and reports no punitive action. (Posted to timeline 9/10/2024)

 

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In a victory for Farm Forward and its allies, on June 28, 2021 the U.S. District Court ruled that Farm Forward and a coalition of animal and environmental protection organizations have standing to sue in two lawsuits against the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), regarding regulations at pig slaughterhouses.

In a suit filed in December 2019, the Animal Law Litigation Clinic challenged USDA’s reducing oversight at pig slaughterhouses and eliminating limits on slaughter speeds, each of which expose pigs to greater suffering. The second lawsuit, filed in February 2020 by Farm Forward and other plaintiffs, sued Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue and the USDA for failing to protect pigs who are too sick or injured to walk at slaughterhouses, posing serious risks to animals and food safety.

Every year, well over half a million pigs arrive at U.S. slaughterhouses too sick or injured to stand or walk. These “downed” pigs have a higher risk of carrying a host of human-transmissible pathogens, including Listeria, Campylobacter, Salmonella, swine flu, and Yersinia. Downed pigs are also more likely to face inhumane handling, including excessive electro-shocking, prodding, kicking, shoving, and dragging by workers attempting to force them to move.

These won’t be easy lawsuits to win, but we will continue to fight for a more just food system until no animals suffer on factory farms. We can’t do this work without you.

Please consider becoming a monthly supporter today to help ensure our ongoing work to build a world free from factory farms. We need you now more than ever.

Last month, Farm Forward, as a member of the Stand Up to Factory Farms coalition, submitted testimony to the Oregon Senate committee on Natural Resources and Wildlife Recovery urging the committee not to pass Senate Bill 151: The Bovine Manure Tax Credit.

In the testimony, the coalition educated the Senate about how the bill “incentivizes and props up unsustainable mega-dairies in Oregon”, “to the disadvantage of family farm dairies”, “and the detriment of rural communities and the environment”, among other vital pieces of the bill’s impact that the Oregon Senate is sworn to protect its people against.

Our testimony also warned about the misleading solution that biogas presents, which seems to be underwhelmingly understood by those who are blindly relying on its perceived benefits:

 “Mega-dairy digesters are touted for their purported climate benefits from methane capture. But in reality, methane digesters are a false solution to climate change and have no place in Oregon’s clean energy future. Digesters at best capture only the additional methane created by the adoption of factory farm practices in the first place.”
― Farm Forward

The Senate Natural Resources and Wildlife Recovery committee has not yet voted on the bill.

Read the full testimony

To support our work fighting on the right side of history, please consider making a donation to the legislative policy program of Farm Forward. 

This week, thanks to groundbreaking legislation introduced by Oregon Representative Rob Nosse and Senator Michael Dembrow, a much-needed moratorium on new and expanding industrial dairies above 2,500 cows has a chance to see the light of day.

As members of the Stand Up to Factory Farms coalition, Farm Forward supports the moratorium which would allow a pause in the permitting of new and expanding mega-dairies until meaningful protections can be enacted to protect Oregon’s air, water, climate, rural communities, small farmers and animal welfare.

“The growth of mega-dairies in Oregon is directly responsible for destroying small dairy farms, polluting our rivers, water, and land, and are a major contributor to the worsening climate crisis,” says Erin Eberle, Director of Engagement at Farm Forward. “It’s past time for Oregon to put our people, farmed animals, and planet before profits. We need a mega-dairy moratorium this session.”

“This legislation could not come at a more critical time for Oregon’s climate,” says Emma Newton, Oregon Organizer with Food & Water Watch and the Stand Up to Factory Farms coalition. “Representative Nosse and Senator Dembrow lead the charge as Oregonians fight back against dangerous industrial dairy facilities.”

“Mega-dairy pollution doesn’t impact all Oregonians equally. Our rural communities- particularly Latinx and indigenous communities- have long lived with polluted air and unsafe drinking water,” says Ana Elisa Wilson, Community Organizer at Oregon Rural Action. “A mega-dairy moratorium would protect Oregon’s rural communities from further harm.”

“Mega-dairies use as much water as a city the size of Bend,” says Brian Posewitz, staff attorney at WaterWatch of Oregon. “Our streams, rivers and groundwater aquifers are too strained to handle that extra load. We appreciate Representative Nosse and Senator Dembrow introducing these bills.”

“Since 2000, Oregon’s small and pastured dairy farmers have struggled to compete with mega-dairies flooding the milk market and driving down prices,” says Amy Wong, Policy Director at Friends of Family Farmers. “A mega-dairy moratorium is the break our small farmers need to stay in business and build a resilient local food system.”

Mega-dairies cause air pollution, contribute to climate change, extract large amounts of water from Oregon’s rivers, streams, and aquifers, contaminate drinking water, harm the welfare of animals, and push family-scale farms out of business. Advocates warn that the increase in mega-dairies is a crisis for Oregon’s communities and natural resources that can only be solved by a “time-out” on the construction and expansion of these facilities. Oregon is poised to be the next hot spot for mega-dairies unless the legislature takes immediate action.

“Because of lax state regulation, frontline communities pay for mega-dairy air and water pollution with their health. But Oregonians deserve a food system that is resilient, healthy, and fair for everyone. That’s why we need a time out to ensure a just system that does not sacrifice people in the pursuit of profits,” says Amy van Saun, Senior Attorney with the Center for Food Safety.

“It is past time to protect our natural resources from the overuse and pollution of mega-dairies. A mega-dairy moratorium ensures Oregon’s water supply, including treasured waterways like the Columbia River, will be safe from waste runoff”, says Lauren Goldberg, Legal and Program Director at Columbia Riverkeeper. “Mega-dairies operate with little regard for the well-being of the thousands of cows forced inside their concrete walls or surrounding communities,” says Animal Legal Defense Fund Executive Director Stephen Wells.“Oregon urgently needs better legal safeguards put in place to protect animals and residents from the threats posed by mega-dairies.”

Consider becoming a sustaining supporter of Farm Forward to help ensure we can continue this important work.

Image Credit: We Animals Media

“All that you touch, You Change. All that you Change, Changes You. The only lasting truth is Change.”

– Octavia Butler

Hello again from 2050. We want you to know that your efforts in 2020 to create a more just food system won’t be for nothing. We’re living in a better world that you helped create. Thanks to your support a new vision for agriculture and food systems became a reality.  

The introduction of the Farm System Reform Act (FSRA) in 2019 was a turning point. Enacted in 2024, the FSRA immediately stopped the construction or expansion of large factory farms, and required that existing factory farms be phased out by 2040. After farmers received training and the FSRA’s billions of dollars of debt forgiveness, they eagerly left factory farming in favor of the highest welfare forms of agriculture, including indigenous-informed methods like agroforestry and silvopasture. Lands formerly used for factory farms and to grow food for farmed animals now support diverse, resilient and regenerative farms. The Regenerative Organic Certified program launched in 2020 set the standard for what climate-friendly and more humane forms of animal agriculture could be.   

You are part of this story. These changes happened because millions of Americans decided it was time for a change. Rural communities that were impacted by CAFOs and rose up to protect themselves, young people who worked to mitigate climate change, citizens who were concerned for animal welfare, and farmers who were tired of being beholden to monopolistic food companies all took action. 

Our thriving, resilient food system honors the lives of human and non-human animals, and recognizes the interdependence of all living beings and the planet. A reminder: In 2020, the future is not yet written. Please consider becoming a sustaining supporter of Farm Forward’s work. 

Future generations thank you.  

With gratitude,  

Farm Forward 

Today Farm Forward and more than 120 groups launched a week of action against Tyson Foods Inc. (NYSE: TSN) demanding the company address the rising number of COVID-19 cases affecting workers at its chicken, pork, and beef processing facilities. 

A letter sent to Tyson shareholders this morning is the first in a series of actions this week to pressure the company to implement essential worker safety measures needed during the COVID-19 pandemic. The week of action kicks off as the Senate goes into recess without passing legislation requiring the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to implement an Emergency Temporary Standard to protect meatpacking and other frontline workers. 

Meatpacking workers nationwide, including those at Tyson, have been fighting for safe working conditions since March. More than 8,500 Tyson employees at 37 poultry, pork, and beef plants in seven states have been confirmed to have tested positive for COVID-19, an infection count more than double that of any other meatpacker. Tragically, more than 25 Tyson workers have died from the virus. 

In response to the meat giant’s continued neglect of workers’ safety, 120 organizations are demanding that Tyson protect workers by:  

• providing personal protective equipment 
• offering paid sick leave 
• slowing down slaughter line speeds 
• comprehensively providing testing 
• ensure workers can practice physical distancing 
• respecting the right to organize, including protecting workers from retaliation, and 
• eliminating the punitive point system that results in unfairly firing workers who miss a certain number of shifts, including those who are legitimately afraid to go back to work because of unsafe working conditions due to COVID-19.  

“I have been organizing workers at poultry processing plants in northwest Arkansas since 2014, and I can tell you there is more to this than a concern for your right to an uninterrupted supply of chicken tenders, bacon, and T-bone steaks,” says Magaly Licolli of Venceremos, a worker-based grassroots organization fighting for better working conditions for poultry workers. “We’re in such a crucial moment right now. For the future of the country, we must think deeply about the meaning of frontline food workers in our daily lives and stand up for their human rights and dignity — because they’ve always been essential, and if they don’t survive, we won’t survive.” 

The week of action against Tyson comes on the heels of tens of thousands of letters sent by concerned citizens to the company demanding swift action to protect workers. Tomorrow, environmental, labor, food justice and animal welfare leaders will also stand in solidarity with Venceremos and frontline meatpacking workers in urging Governor Hutchinson to close plants where workers have tested positive for COVID-19. The rest of the week will include petitions, social media, emails, and phone calls calling on Tyson to immediately implement the basic health and safety measures listed above.  

Actions for Worker Safety 

Tyson’s failure to properly protect its workforce from the spread of this deadly virus is a prime illustration of how little the company cares about its employees—who are predominantly people of color and immigrants—despite its aggressive media efforts to portray the opposite. Take Action Today—Here’s how. 

Update — (September 17, 2019) Today, after years of overwhelming public push back by Farm Forward and a diverse coalition of more than 35 consumer, labor, environmental, public health, animal protection and civil rights organizations, the USDA’s FSIS published its final hog slaughter inspection rule that will revoke maximum slaughter line speeds, while also transferring key inspection duties to the plants themselves, presenting a number of food safety, animal welfare, and worker safety concerns. This egregious form of deregulation, done in the name of modernization and innovation, reflects a food system that places profit over people, animals, and the planet.

Update — (April, 2019) This month just weeks after Pat Basu, the chief veterinarian with the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service from 2016 to 2018, refused to sign off on a new pork inspection system because of concerns about safety for consumers, workers, and livestock, Trump’s USDA made plans to shift much of the power and responsibility for food safety inspections in hog plants to the pork industry. Under the proposed new inspection system there would be NO LIMITS ON SLAUGHTER LINE-SPEEDS.

Update — (May 2, 2018) the USDA closed it’s public comment period on the “Modernization of Swine Slaughter Inspection” rule. Thanks to you, Farm Forward submitted over 3,000 comments in opposition to this rule that if passed, would roll back progress for animals, workers, and consumers. We’ll continue to update progress on this rule here so check back often.

Thanks for joining us in our fight to end factory farming. We can’t do it without you.

Original Post

Farm Forward is proud to join a diverse coalition of more than 35 consumer, labor, environmental, public health, animal protection and civil rights organizations opposing USDA’s expansion of a high-speed hog slaughter program. We need your help—sign the petition below!

If passed, the “Modernization of Swine Slaughter Inspection” rule will revoke maximum slaughter line speeds, while also transferring key inspection duties to the plants themselves, presenting a number of food safety, animal welfare, and worker safety concerns.

Even USDA inspectors who’ve observed the faster speeds first-hand have spoken out against them. According to an inspector who participated in the pilot program:

“On numerous occasions, I witnessed plant employees fail to spot abscesses, lesions, fecal matter, and other defects that would render an animal unsafe or unwholesome.” The inspector further explained that without incentive, these plant workers “don’t actually want to shut off the line to deal with problems they spot on the job. Obviously, their employer will terminate them if they do it too many times.”

You can help! Here’s how:

The USDA is accepting public comments on the rule until May 4,2018. Sign our petition below to let them know that as a concerned American citizen you oppose the “Modernization of Swine Slaughter Inspection” rule because it rolls back progress for animals, workers, and consumers.

We’ll submit the signatures we collect directly to the USDA prior to the close of public comments on May 4, 2018.

Click Here To Help Us Stop The USDA

Thanks for helping to create a more just, humane, and sustainable food system. Please share this petition using the icons below to help us spread the word. And please consider making a donation or starting a Facebook fundraiser to support our ongoing work to change the way our nation eats and farms.

Today, Farm Forward along with a coalition of family farm, animal welfare, and environmental groups sent a letter to Oregon Governor Kate Brown condemning the reappointment of Marty Myers, general manager of Threemile Canyon Farms for a second four-year term on Oregon’s Board of Agriculture. The groups cited Myers’ conflict of interest in influencing policy decisions by his own mega-dairy’s regulator–the Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA)–and his track record opposing rules to limit pollution generated by industrial dairies. 

The coalition cited the approval and failed oversight of the notorious Lost Valley Farm mega-dairy which eventually had its permit revoked and was sold following numerous violations for animal waste management and storage. We believe that Myers and other Board of Agriculture members have failed to appropriately use their roles as policy advisors to advocate for needed improvements in ODA’s Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) program in the wake of the Lost Valley disaster. 

“We need an Ag Board that is willing to protect Oregonians’ air and water from contamination from mega-dairies, not industry insiders who want to continue to protect their own interests,” said Tarah Heinzen, a senior attorney with Food & Water Watch. “Allowing Myers, a mega-dairy operator, to continue to influence the Department of Agriculture as it considers permitting yet another mega-dairy at the Lost Valley site does not bode well for Eastern Oregon residents or our environment.” 

“With the reappointment of Marty Myers to the Board of Agriculture, Governor Brown has demonstrated her continued allegiance to industrialized dairy in Oregon and her lack of regard for our family-owned dairies, which continue to struggle in very difficult market conditions,” said Shari Sirkin, Executive Director of Friends of Family Farmers. “It would have been far better to appoint a real family farmer to this board, but once again, Governor Brown chose Oregon’s mega-dairies over its small, independent farms.” 

The groups blasted Governor Brown for rushing through the reappointment, without addressing community concerns about Myers’ conflict of interest.  

“This was a backroom, closed-door decision without any public review or input,” said Hannah Connor, senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. “It indicates the governor remains much more interested in appeasing corporate agricultural interests than working openly with Oregonians to make sure their air and water is safe.”  

“This is not the first time that the Governor and her agencies have shut us out of what should be a public process to regulate these massive industrial facilities,” said Amy van Saun, senior attorney with the Center for Food Safety. “Just like in the Lost Valley permit revocation process, where we were excluded from a closed-door settlement, public stakeholders have a right to a seat at the table when state policymakers are deciding the fate of our environment and public health.” 

Several of the groups criticizing Governor Brown’s decision to reappoint Myers raised similar concerns four years ago, but those concerns have gone unanswered. The organizations now seek a meeting with the Governor’s staff to discuss needed improvements to transparency and regulation of mega-dairies going forward. 

This week, on behalf of Farm Forward and a coalition of other plaintiffs, Public Justice filed a motion for summary judgment asking the Court to enjoin North Carolina from enforcing the “Anti-Sunshine Law” and declare it unconstitutional. This “ag-gag” law criminalizes whistleblowing and undercover investigations. The Anti-Sunshine Law is meant to punish anyone—employees, journalists, and even community members—who investigate the practices of a property owner or employer to bring illegal or dangerous behavior to light. The North Carolina ag-gag law is especially egregious because of the all-encompassing language it uses to criminalize any kind of whistleblowing about federal, state or private industry.  

Farm Forward is part of a coalition of plaintiffs in this lawsuit that includes the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Animal Legal Defense Fund, Center for Food Safety, Farm Sanctuary, Food & Water Watch, Government Accountability Project, and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. The plaintiffs’ joint statement reads: 

North Carolina’s Anti-Sunshine Law seriously hinders North Carolinians’ ability to know the truth about misconduct, mistreatment and corruption happening in virtually every industry, including nursing homes, factory farms, financial institutions, daycare centers and more. It’s an extreme law forced on citizens over a governor’s veto by lawmakers who bowed to pressure from corporate lobbyists. This law blatantly violates citizens’ rights to free speech, a free press, and to petition their government, and violates the Equal Protection Clause. It places the safety of our families, our food supply, and animals at risk, and it attempts to bully and threaten those working for transparency, free speech and the public good. Our lawsuit is being brought for the sake of the health and safety of all citizens of North Carolina. We are confident the law will be found unconstitutional and that a victory in North Carolina will deter other state legislatures from repeating North Carolina’s mistake. 

Research indicates that most consumers value and prioritize animal welfare. We believe that consumers have the right to know where their food comes from and how farmed animals were raised. These ag-gag laws were designed to prevent that.  

The hog industry dominates North Carolina, where more than nine million hogs live on factory farms. Community and animal welfare advocates have historically used undercover investigations to document evidence of the damage that CAFOs unleash on North Carolina. Since the Anti-Sunshine Law was passed, we know of just one set of investigators who have successfully exposed factory farming: our friends in the Waterkeeper Alliance, who took to the air after Hurricane Florence hit Eastern North Carolina to film CAFOs’ breached lagoons spilling millions of gallons of toxic hog waste into the surrounding ecosystems and communities. But investigators without access to personal aircraft are out of luck…and even airborne investigators can’t document what goes on inside facilities. So in passing the Anti-Sunshine law and other ag-gag legislation like it, Big Ag and its lobbyists have successfully promoted their own interests over the welfare of animals, the environment, and the communities surrounding North Carolina’s CAFOs—many of which are comprised by the state’s most marginalized residents. But Farm Forward and our allies are fighting back through this lawsuit and motion, and we’re working hard to keep the public informed about these issues.  

Farm Forward is committed to our role as a watchdog of the American food system and now more than ever—as climate change worsens, communities of color bear the brunt of our industrialized model of food production, and small and midsize farms crumble—it’s essential that we continue our fight to build a more just, healthy and equitable system for humans, animals, and the planet.  

We can’t do it without you. 

This year Farm Forward joined a coalition of nearly two dozen farming, consumer, animal welfare, and environmental groups in asking Oregon leaders to put a moratorium on large, commercial dairies, in the face of inadequate oversight by state regulators and insufficient laws to protect the environment, animal welfare, and small farms. Our work resulted in getting three new bills introduced into the Oregon legislature, all of which died in committee this session.

Today as a coalition we released the below statement to highlight our disappointment and concern, and to confirm our intent to continue to call for a mega-dairy moratorium on behalf of all Oregonians.

——

Columbia Riverkeeper, Food & Water Watch, Friends of Family Farmers, WaterWatch of Oregon, Center for Food Safety, Farm Forward, Animal Legal Defense Fund, Humane Voters Oregon, Factory Farming Awareness Coalition, Humane Society of the United States

Oregon Mega-Dairy Reform Bills Die, Threatening Repeat of Lost Valley Disaster

For Immediate Release: April, 12, 2019

(SALEM, Oregon) — Oregon is at risk of repeating the ecological and economic disaster that occurred at the Lost Valley mega-dairy in Eastern Oregon after three bills aimed at fixing the problem failed to pass this legislative session. This means the loopholes that allowed the Lost Valley mega-dairy to rack up hundreds of environmental violations, threaten groundwater, and leave behind more than 30 million gallons of liquid manure can be exploited by the new owner of the property near Boardman. In the wake of regulatory and environmental failures surrounding the Lost Valley, which was permitted for up to 30,000 cows in 2017 despite significant public opposition, a coalition of nearly two dozen farming, consumer, animal welfare, and environmental groups had called for reforms, including a ‘time-out’ on state-issued permits for new mega-dairies.

Senate Bill 103 would have put a hold on licensing new mega-dairies to allow the Oregon Department of Agriculture and other state agencies time to ensure future industrial dairies wouldn’t cause similar unchecked damage. Senate Bill 104 would have allowed local governments to enact common-sense measures to prevent groundwater and environmental contamination from sewage and dead animals at new mega-dairies. Both bills received a public hearing but have died in committee without a vote

“The Legislature had an opportunity to place a time-out on new mega-dairies in the wake of the Lost Valley disaster, but failed to take any meaningful action,” said Tarah Heinzen, senior staff attorney for Food & Water Watch and a member of the coalition. “We will continue to call for a mega-dairy moratorium on behalf of all Oregonians — who value clean water, vibrant rural communities, and ethical business practices.”

“Industrial mega-dairies are using loopholes in Oregon law to expand their operations while operating under the same rules as the small and mid-sized family farms they are driving out business,” said Ivan Maluski, Policy Director for Friends of Family Farmers, another coalition member. “Unfortunately, even the most reasonable reforms were blocked by lobbyists representing the growing number of mega-dairy operators that are putting our family-scale dairy farms out of business.”

According to new data released this week from the USDA Census of Agriculture, the dairy industry in Oregon and across the US is consolidating into larger and larger operations. Nationwide, the number of dairy farms dropped by more than 17 percent in the last five years even as milk production and sales increased, with smaller dairy farms going out of business as the largest farms grow larger.

Another bill, SB 876, was requested by State Senator Michael Dembrow to tighten up rules to prevent unsustainable water use by new large dairies. An amendment focused on preventing pollution and overuse of threatened groundwater by new large dairies with over 2500 cows was offered in the Senate Committee on Environment and Natural Resources in the final days before a key legislative deadline, but even this modest proposal failed in a 2-3 vote with Senator Arnie Roblan (D-Coos Bay) aligning with two committee Republicans, Senators Cliff Bentz (R-Ontario) and Alan Olsen (R-Canby) to kill the reform.

“We participated in Senator Dembrow’s work group for several months, and had hoped it would have led to reasonable industry groups working together with us to prevent the worst mistakes made at Lost Valley from happening again,” said Brian Posewitz, who worked on the issue both as a staff attorney for WaterWatch of Oregon and as a board member for the animal welfare group Humane Voters Oregon. “For example, lobbyists representing industrial dairies blocked a provision in an amendment to SB 876 to prevent unlimited exempt use of groundwater by new operations over 2500 cows in areas where other agricultural water rights are restricted by rule or order due to declining and limited supplies. They also prevented creation of a task force, which would have had equal representation from the industry, simply to talk about animal welfare issues at industrial dairies.”

“I think Oregonians would be shocked to know that the majority of dairy products now come from industrial mega-dairies like Lost Valley that raise cows in extreme confinement, where animals often stand in their own feces, with little to no access to the outdoors. While it’s no surprise that Big Ag worked hard to defeat these bills, we’re disappointed that three legislators on the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee didn’t listen to the majority of Oregonians who value animal welfare and sustainable food,” said Erin Eberle, Director of Engagement for Farm Forward.

“Lost Valley threatened groundwater, racked up hundreds of permit violations, treated their animals inhumanely, and left 30 million gallons of manure and wastewater behind, and yet the State Department of Agriculture didn’t prevent it from happening when they could have,” said Scott Beckstead, Rural Outreach Director with the Humane Society of the United States. “With a new owner of the Lost Valley site likely planning to re-open the 30,000 cow facility soon, we will keep working to ensure this and other industrial dairies aren’t allowed to exploit the loopholes in Oregon’s laws again.”

For Immediate Release, December 2, 2018

Meat-heavy Menu at UN Climate Conference Could Contribute 4,000 Metric Tons of Greenhouse Gases.

KATOWICE, Poland — New analysis from the Center for Biological Diversity, Farm Forward and Brighter Green today finds that the meat-heavy menu at the United Nations’ Framework Convention on Climate Change conference COP24 could contribute more than 4,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases to the climate crisis.

The data found that if all 30,000 visitors choose meat-based dishes at the conference’s largest food court during the 12-day conference, they would contribute the equivalent of burning more than 500,000 gallons of gasoline or the greenhouse gas emissions attributed to 3,000 people flying from New York to Katowice.

The groups that compiled the research called on the United Nations to create a framework for host countries to prioritize climate-friendly menus at future climate meetings.

“The meat-laden menu at COP24 is an insult to the work of the conference,” said Stephanie Feldstein, director of the Population and Sustainability program at the Center for Biological Diversity. “If the world leaders gathering in Poland hope to address the climate crisis, they need to tackle overconsumption of meat and dairy, starting with what’s on their own plates. That means transitioning the food served at international climate conferences to more plant-based options with smaller carbon footprints.”

The menu features twice as many meat-based options as plant-based ones. These meat dishes generate average greenhouse gas emissions four times higher than the plant-based meals. The two dairy-free, plant-based options generate one-tenth of the emissions.

In addition to higher greenhouse gas emissions, the meat-based dishes on the menu require nine times more land and nearly twice as much water as the plant-based dishes.

“What people eat at a conference may seem like small potatoes when it comes to curbing global emissions,” added Farm Forward’s Claire Fitch. “But if those at the forefront of global climate negotiations aren’t going to ‘walk the talk’ at the highest-level climate conference, how can we expect the rest of the world to get on board?”

Studies have shown that it will not be possible to meet global climate targets without reducing meat and dairy consumption and production. Yet the need to tackle the overconsumption of animal-based foods has been largely absent from international climate negotiations and commitments. The majority of food-related efforts focus on improving production practices with few or no significant targets for shifting to less climate-intensive diets.

“We know that we cannot meet the Paris Agreement goals, or the 1.5C target, with business as usual,” said Caroline Wimberly of Brighter Green, who will be in Katowice for COP24. “Food is not a matter only of personal choice, but an essential factor in solving the climate crisis. Demand-side policies and efforts, including food waste reductions and shifting diets — prioritizing populations with the highest consumption of animal-based foods — are critical in achieving a climate compatible food system and curtailing emissions.”

The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.

Brighter Green is an environmental think-tank based in New York, and has been participating as an NGO observer in the UNFCCC since COP15 in 2009.

Farm Forward is a team of strategists, educators, campaigners, and thought leaders guiding the movement to change the way our world eats and farms. They implement innovative strategies to promote conscientious food choices, reduce farmed animal suffering, and advance sustainable agriculture. Farm Forward is pushing the ceiling of animal welfare by looking beyond incremental suffering reduction on factory farms, towards the institutional and cultural change that will end factory farming.

Most Americans know that factory farming is a nightmare for animals and our environment, but too often we forget that the people who work within these industries suffer as well. To remain employed, workers are forced to slaughter and process animals at dangerously fast rates.1 The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) limits meatpacking line speeds to reduce rates of foodborne illness, but no state or federal statute limits line speeds standards for worker safety.2 Unsurprisingly, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, meatpackers face an illness and injury rate two and a half times higher than the national average.3

In working conditions the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) associates with “high noise levels, dangerous equipment, slippery floors, musculoskeletal disorders, and hazardous chemicals,”4 meatpackers must quickly perform precise and repetitive tasks, often with knives in hand.5 Line processors commonly have only seconds to kill or cut apart one animal before turning to the next. Since profit margins are slim, volume is paramount, and workers are under constant pressure to process more animals in less time.6

Lives on the Line

While the poultry industry thrives, the workforce pays the price, as detailed in Oxfam America’s 2015 report “Lives on the Line: The Human Cost of Cheap Chicken.” Each worker handles thousands of birds every day: hanging live chickens, trimming skin, cutting off wings. Hourly wages are low; injury and illness rates are high.7 Even breathing takes a toll, as workers are often confined to spaces where the air is laden with dust, chlorine, and ammonia.8 According to a 2011 study, poultry processors have one of the highest rates of human exposure to some cancer-causing agents, and have an elevated risk of dying from chronic disease including leukemias, thyroid diseases, and bacterial infections.9

The rapid line speeds cause a range of worker injuries, including carpal tunnel syndrome and other musculoskeletal disorders.10 The current poultry industry line speeds generally range from 70 to 140 birds per hour. This rate is harmful not only to workers but also the birds facing slaughter; nearly 1 million chickens and turkeys are unintentionally boiled alive each year in U.S. slaughterhouses, often because fast-moving lines prevent workers from killing the birds before they are dropped into scalding water.11 Nonetheless, in 2012 the USDA conducted a pilot program in 20 slaughterhouses to test an increased line-speed limit of 175 birds per hour. Thanks to two years of pressure applied by animal protection organizations and workers’ rights groups, including Farm Forward, the USDA dropped the proposal after a two year battle12—but the industry’s valuing profit over welfare has led to a new tactic:

In September 2017 the National Chicken Council (NCC) petitioned USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue to waive line speed limits entirely, complaining that line speed limits reduce profits and dampen the industry’s competitive advantage in a global marketplace.

Taking Action

Farm Forward has joined a coalition of organizations that—on behalf of our combined tens of millions of supporters—have urged the USDA to deny the NCC’s petition. On October 16, 2017 our coalition met in person with USDA representatives to urge the department to reject these new rules. The USDA has not yet made its decision, and has launched a public comment period, open until December 13, 2017.

We urge all readers who support worker safety to comment now, even just by writing “I urge you to reject the NCC petition.” To comment, click the blue button in the upper right corner of this page. Please share this article with your social networks and encourage others to join us!

For years, Farm Forward has worked to create a more just and sustainable food system, where the experiences of workers and animals are respected and valued, but we can’t continue this work without your help. Please donate now and support our mission to change the way our nation eats and farms.

Farm Forward, in collaboration with the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) and the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), has released a comprehensive report calling on the USDA to finalize the pending Organic Livestock and Poultry Practices (OLPP). The report, titled “Animal Welfare in the National Organic Program: The USDA Must Act Quickly to Ensure Consumer Trust,” documents how farmers, retailers, and consumer advocates overwhelmingly support—and expect—stronger welfare standards for animals raised under the organic program.

Read the full report here

The OLPP rule fills critical gaps in the current organic standards and requires, for the first time, outdoor access for all animals including egg-laying hens, indoor and outdoor minimum space requirements, restrictions on physical alterations like beak trimming, and standards for more humane transport and slaughter.

The OLPP rule codifies practices that the vast majority of organic farmers already follow. For example, most organic egg farms already provide hens with meaningful access to outdoors. Unfortunately, the current organic regulations include a loophole allowing producers to use enclosed “porches” over concrete pads as opposed to actual outdoor access. “The OLPP rule levels the playing field for small- and medium-sized farmers,” says Andrew deCoriolis of Farm Forward. “Farmers who provide real outdoor access are otherwise disadvantaged competing with large-scale, “organic” factory farms that don’t give animals true access to the outdoors.”

Consumer Reports found that 83 percent of consumers who buy organic foods want strong protections for animals raised under the organic program, including outdoor access for chickens and laying hens.1  Scientists and veterinarians have affirmed the benefits of outdoor access and confirmed that it does not increase the risk of animal disease.

Opposition to the OLPP rule comes mainly from a small group of industry lobbyists and large-scale organic egg companies. Even though trade groups like the National Pork Producers Council don’t represent organic farmers, they combat efforts to establish welfare requirements for animals—even in a voluntary program like Certified Organic—for fear that the government may pass stricter laws protecting animal welfare. Large organic egg companies oppose the rule because if they fail to provide meaningful outdoor access (which will be difficult at their scale), they won’t be able to sell their products at a premium without the organic label.

After delaying the OLPP rule twice, President Trump’s USDA is now considering repealing the rule entirely. We can’t let this happen. After more than a decade of work by farmers, welfare groups, veterinarians, scientists, and consumers, we must ensure that corporate farms don’t water down the meaning of important labels, like Certified Organic.

This blog was authored by Erin Eberle, former Director of Engagement at Farm Forward. 

Farm Forward believes that a sustainable and just food system treats animals and humans with dignity. We’re facing a new administration whose agricultural advisory committee will include outspoken opponents of wage reform and animal welfare policies. That’s why it’s more important than ever that we approach our advocacy in strategic ways, building new alliances and supporting efforts to improve the food system for both animals and people. Our latest effort is joining a coalition of organizations—including those representing workers and the environment—to oppose the nomination of Andrew Puzder as President-elect Donald Trump’s new Secretary of Labor.

The U.S. Department of Labor exists to protect the rights of working people, in part by ensuring employers follow the law. As CEO of CKE restaurants, the parent company of fast food chains Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr., Mr. Puzder has spent the last 16 years overseeing a fast food chain notorious for violating basic wage and hour laws.1

At any given time, there are about 3.5 million fast food workers in the U.S. They typically work for minimum wage without medical benefits or the right to unionize. Fast food workers also suffer one of the highest injury rates of any employment sector, and are statistically more likely than police officers to be murdered while working.2 Paul Secunda, Director of the Labor and Employment Law Program at Marquette University, has voiced concern that Puzder has taken advantage of the fact that fast food workers are a vulnerable population that is easy to abuse:

“They are usually at the bottom of the pay scale, they usually don’t have the sophistication to know their rights under the law, and it’s hard for them to be collective in their approach because they’re moving around so much… It’s really easy to manipulate them and exploit them, and that’s what we’ve seen,” said Secunda.

Even within a dangerous industry CKE stands out. Since 2006, investigations of CKE restaurants have found workplace health and safety violations in 57 percent. The Restaurant Opportunities Center United (ROC United)—a nonprofit that advocates for restaurant workers’ rights—surveyed over 500 CKE restaurant employees and not only found that close to a third of the workers had experienced a form of wage theft, but also that two-thirds of female workers experienced sexual harassment at work.3 The rate of sexual harassment across the fast food industry is high— 40 percent of female workers report some form of unwanted contact, but ROC United further notes that the 66 percent reporting rate found among CKE employees is “disturbing.” Given this track record Puzder is in no way qualified to serve as Secretary of Labor, a position that wields so much power over the most vulnerable of our workforce.

During his tenure as a fast food CEO, Puzder has made 650 times more money per year than his lowest-paid full-time employees. According to Institute for Policy Studies analysis of the most recent data, Puzder has made as much as $10 million per year in total compensation. Special executive “perks” made up just a small portion of this pay, and yet these rewards dramatically illustrate the challenge of Puzder’s labor policy positions. For example: Puzder opposes mandatory sick leave policies for workers and wants to get rid of the Affordable Care Act. At the same time, he himself has enjoyed huge reimbursement checks from his company for medical and dental costs — above and beyond his regular employer-provided health insurance benefits. In just one year, these reimbursements totaled an astounding $61,000. In contrast, only 9 percent of CKE non-managerial staff have access to health-care through their employer.4

The increasing demand for cheap chicken fuels an unbalanced system—one rife with the abuse of power—that creates the suffering of both factory workers and animals alike. An in-depth look at the treatment of poultry plant workers this year by Oxfam America revealed the severity of worker abuses in the industrial agriculture system. Their comprehensive report, “Lives on the Line: The Human Cost of Cheap Chicken,” highlights the labor and wage abuses inherent in today’s large scale industrial poultry industry.5 For more information, see our article “The Human Costs of Factory Farming.”

The poultry industry is booming. Consumer demand is growing and profits are climbing. Executive compensation is soaring at the cost of both humans and animals. The buying power that fast food chains, like Puzder’s Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr., wield could ostensibly shift our industrialized food system to one that is more humane and sustainable. Puzder and CKE restaurants exemplify the fast food industry’s blind abandon of dignity, sustainability, and respect for the lives of workers and animals. We must vigorously oppose Puzder’s nomination both ethically and morally as Secretary of Labor since he has made a career of exploitation.

A Secretary of Labor Puzder would support the interests of the fast food industry—and its big meat and food industry suppliers—over the needs of hard-working people in the food system. Fast food companies couldn’t exist without the products that come from animals raised on factory farms; his confirmation would ensure that the unnecessary suffering of farmed animals on factory farms continues.

We need you now more than ever. Will you join us in our opposition to Andrew Puzder as Secretary of Labor as we fight for a more just and sustainable food system that treats the land, farmers and animals with respect? Fill out this quick form to let your Senators know you care.

Farm Forward is a team of strategists, campaigners, and thought leaders helping guide the movement to change the way our world eats and farms. What sets us apart from other animal welfare groups is our visionary leadership that looks beyond suffering reduction to the overall institutional and cultural change that will end factory farming. Our strategy is unique. While reducing animal suffering through policy remains central to our work, we also recognize the need to combine policy with efforts to transform animal farming, and that we must change the narrative Americans tell themselves about the food they eat.

This was a big year for us. In fact, it was our biggest year yet.

Farm Forward’s Game Changing Victories in 2016

Jewish Initiative for Animals 

The most robust program of Farm Forward’s “Faith in Food Initiative” is the Jewish Initiative for Animals (JIFA), a movement to support innovative programs to turn Jewish values of compassion for animals into action while building Jewish American communities in the process. Our most recent accomplishments include the launch of The Ark Project, our groundbreaking new curriculum for Jewish youth to connect their love for animals to Jewish values through a bar or bat mitzvah (b’nai mitzvah) project, and our unparalleled work to bring higher-welfare heritage chicken back to kosher consumers for the first time in decades. JIFA Educators have presented at national and regional conferences, coordinated Jewish humane education at 20 Jewish summer camps, created two dozen sets of educational resources, and organized 25 events nationwide that address the intersection of Jewish values, animal welfare, and ethical food choices.

Improving Poultry Welfare: Landmark Announcement to Address Genetic Health

As the first national organization to focus on poultry genetics, Farm Forward has pushed to make the return to genetically healthy birds a central aspect of Global Animal Partnership’s (GAP) 5-Step® standards since GAP’s inception. Last year, these efforts led to a change effectively requiring producers at the highest Step to use heritage turkeys (turkeys with optimal genetic welfare) and refrain from caging or feed-restricting breeder turkeys, practices used universally in conventional breeding facilities. As a result of these efforts, GAP recently announced a landmark pledge to phase out  the fastest-growing strains of chickens—which currently account for more than 99 percent of chicken meat sold in the U.S.—by 2024. Whole Foods Market’s pledge to follow the new standard will improve welfare for hundreds of millions of chickens. Read more here.

School Food Policy Improvements

Farm Forward promotes food choices that minimize farmed animal suffering. This year we partnered with Center for Good Food Purchasing to develop a comprehensive food policy, the Good Food Purchasing Program (GFPP), which addresses local economies, treatment of workers, the environment, and animal welfare. We’ve taken a leading role in defining the program’s animal welfare standards and have committed to providing ongoing support to institutions that adopt GFPP so that we can help them identify and locate higher-welfare animal products. Our partnership with the Center enables us to leverage the buying power of institutions and governments to change the way America eats and farms. So far this year both San Francisco and Oakland Unified School districts adopted the program. By helping major groups like San Francisco and Oakland schools move their supply chains to higher-quality providers, we are increasing the availability of better animal products to average consumers and getting one step closer to creating a post-factory farmed food system. Read more here.

Institutional Supply Chain Transparency

As part of our broader work to help schools and businesses find alternatives to factory farmed animal products, we worked directly with The University of California (UC) system to help identify higher welfare poultry products for their schools. The result: eight of its ten schools will now purchase eggs from certified higher-welfare farms. This new contract will not only improve the lives of tens of thousands of animals, but also send a message that raising animals in higher-welfare conditions is important to consumers. Read more here.

Connecting Faith with Food Choices

Our Faith in Food Initiative is the largest national effort to promote community-specific efforts to fight factory farming from a faith-based perspective. The Faith in Food Initiative activates spiritual leaders within faith communities and works with them to help their religious institutions find their own unique ways of joining us in the fight against factory farming. For example, Rev. Dr. Christopher Carter is working with Farm Forward to do just that in the American black church. Christopher is a United Methodist pastor and rising star in Black Theology. He joins Farm Forward as one of our two inaugural Faith in Food Fellows, along with Dr. David Clough whose CreatureKind project you can read about here. Christopher’s work explores the meaning of soul food within the African American community in the age of factory farming. Read more here.

Taking a Stand With Farmers

For years, Farm Forward has worked to create a more just and sustainable food system. Unlike most other sustainable agriculture and animal welfare organizations, we forge relationships with small farmers who provide alternatives to factory farming. This year we spearheaded an outreach campaign to engage consumers in taking action to stand with farmers and against Big-Ag…and we won! Read more here.

Coalition Bands Together to Improve the Certified Organic Label

This summer, Farm Forward joined a coalition of animal, environmental, and consumer protection organizations to submit a joint comment to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on its proposed rule to amend animal welfare requirements under the Certified Organic label. Through an outreach campaign we gathered more than 120,000 comments from our supporters who want to see a stronger organic program. The proposed rule would increase both animal welfare and uniformity and bring the Organic standards more in line with consumer expectations. Read more here.

Factory Farming is Risky Business

Everyone knows that factory farming is bad for animals, humans, and the environment. Now, with our help, a growing number of financial institutions are realizing that it’s bad for investors, too. With input from Farm Forward, a groundbreaking new report released this year calls into question the wisdom of investing in industrialized animal agriculture. Published by Farm Animal Investment Risk & Return (FAIRR), the report highlights the risks to investors posed by a wide array of environmental, governance, and social issues that stem from factory farming. Read more here.

Anti-Sunshine Law – The fight against Ag-gag in NC

Farm Forward joined a federal lawsuit to strike down North Carolina’s ag-gag law, which went into effect January 1, 2016, despite Governor McCrory’s veto. The law punishes whistleblowers for exposing animal abuse, human rights violations, and anything else that employers wish to hide from the public. As stated in our petition: “North Carolina’s Anti-Sunshine Law seriously hinders North Carolinians’ ability to know the truth about misconduct, mistreatment and corruption happening in virtually every industry, including nursing homes, factory farms, financial institutions, daycare centers and more. It’s an extreme law forced on citizens over a governor’s veto by lawmakers who bowed to pressure from corporate lobbyists. Our lawsuit is being brought for the sake of the health and safety of all citizens of North Carolina. We are confident the law will be found unconstitutional and that a victory in North Carolina will deter other state legislatures from repeating North Carolina’s mistake.” Read more here.

Transcending Borders to End Factory Farming

If we’re going to defeat factory farming, we can’t be content with victories only in the US, Canada, and Mexico—we must also turn back the progress of the factory farm in the world’s most populous nations, India and China, before it’s too late. India, as a fellow democracy with a developed and free media, is a natural ally. Action in India today can have an overwhelming impact precisely because India still has comparatively low rates of meat consumption and, although factory farms now dot the countryside, traditional systems of farming are still widespread. We believe our work to internationalize the movement for truly humane, sustainable, and just animal agriculture will be key to defeating the factory farm. Read more here.

Because of YOU

2016 is our biggest year yet, but only because you care. Without your support Farm Forward would not be able to impact the lives of millions of farmed animals. This year your support is more important than ever since we’re facing a new administration whose agricultural advisory committee will include outspoken opponents of animal welfare policies. We will have to work harder than ever and be more vigilant than in years past, and we can’t do this work in 2017 without your help.

Please sign up for our monthly newsletter to receive updates about our innovative outreach work and other programs. If you’d like to support our work to change the way our world eats and farms, please make a contribution today.

Updated: October 17, 2017

In a major blow to small and independent farmers today the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) announced it will withdraw an interim final rule from the Obama Administration that would have set proof of harm standards under the Packers and Stockyards Act.

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Updated: December 14, 2016 

Today, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) announced updated regulations to protect farmers. Under GIPSA, small poultry farmers receive basic protections like making it illegal for companies to retaliate against farmers, and offering them access to a jury trial if grievances arise. The “Farmer Fair Practices Rules” target the most harmful practices hurting farmers and clearly outlines common sense protections to restore fairness and reduce the burden for farmers seeking justice under this nearly 100 year old act meant to eliminate abusive practices in the meatpacking industry. Farm Forward applauds the Administration’s efforts to help create a more fair, just, and humane food system.

Full PDF of Press Release Available Here

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September 26, 2016 — In yet another attempt to manipulate an already inhumane and unjust poultry industry, Tyson Foods is lobbying Congress to prevent legislation that provides basic protections for poultry farmers. It’s no secret that the poultry industry is fundamentally unjust—from animal welfare abuse to environmental destruction to worker’s rights abuses to unjust contracts with small farmers—but these “anti-farmer” legislative efforts are a new low.

Under the USDA’s Grain Inspection, Packers, and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA), small poultry farmers receive basic protections like making it illegal for companies to retaliate against farmers and offering them access to a jury trial if grievances arise. Big poultry wants to erode these protections. As the September 30 deadline approaches for finalizing annual spending bills, lobbyists including Tyson Foods are working tirelessly to pass what is known as the “GIPSA Rider.” If successful, this rider will block the USDA from enacting farmer protection rules that were implemented in 2011 and continue to be blocked by the industry.

The Problem with Big Ag

Factory farms have pushed small farmers out of business while twenty massive companies produce more than 96% of the nation’s chicken.According to Christopher Leonard, author of The Meat Racket,

Tyson keeps farmers in a state of indebted servitude living like modern-day sharecroppers on the ragged edge of bankruptcy.1

Tyson depends on its farmers, but the company’s desire to produce the most meat for the lowest cost has created a system jeopardizing the lives and livelihood of the men and women who do most of the work. This past April, journalist Nicholas Kristof wrote an exposé in the New York Times highlighting the deep, inherent problems with our current poultry system. The piece sheds light on the poultry industry’s systematic abuse of birds, dangers to the environment and human health, and injustice to farmers.

At a time when the poultry industry is reporting record earnings, many contract poultry farmers lose money each year. Seventy one percent of farmers whose sole income is from farming live below the poverty line.2 Yet the prosperous poultry industry still lobbies for legislation at the expense of small farmers. We have to stand up for these independent farmers.

Taking A Stand With Farmers

For years, Farm Forward has worked to create a more just and sustainable food system. What sets us apart from other sustainable agriculture and animal welfare organizations is our commitment to small farmers who provide alternatives to factory farming. We forge relationships with the people who interact with animals the most because they’re part of the solution.

Our latest project to change the industrialized poultry system—and ultimately the way America eats and farms—is an outreach campaign to engage consumers in taking action to stand with farmers. Please sign our petition and tell Congress to stop the poultry industry from hurting small farms for their own profit.

Thank you for joining us in taking a stand to build a more just and humane food system. Please share this article with friends and family on Facebook  and Twitter and let them know that these issues are important to you.

We can’t do this work without your help. Please donate now and help us continue our unique work to end factory farming. You can also sign up to receive our newsletter to stay updated on other ways to get involved.

UPDATE: May 10, 2017

In response to the Trump Administration’s second delay this year of the Organic Livestock and Poultry Practices rule, Farm Forward joins The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) and the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) to entreat the USDA to implement the rules without further delay.

The Organic Livestock and Poultry Practices rule requires outdoor access for all animals including egg-laying hens, sets indoor and outdoor space requirements for chickens, restricts physical alterations, adds transport and slaughter standards, and sets other crucial minimum standards.

This rule is critical not only for animals raised for food on organic farms, but also higher-welfare organic farmers who deserve to be distinguished from large organic certified factory farms that do not follow the spirit of the law. This rule will dramatically improve the welfare of millions of farmed animals every year and will bring organic standards more in line with consumer expectations.

Our joint statement reads in full:

“The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), and Farm Forward implore the USDA to implement the Organic Livestock and Poultry Practices rule without delay.

Our organizations join the voices of farmers, consumer and health advocates, food companies, and the National Organic Standards Board calling to finalize the outcome of the 15-year collaborative process that created what would be the first comprehensive federal standards for on-farm welfare.

The Organic Livestock and Poultry Practices rule requires outdoor access for all animals, including egg-laying hens; sets indoor and outdoor space requirements for chickens; restricts physical alterations; adds transport and slaughter standards; and sets other crucial minimum standards.

This rule is critical not only for animals but also to level the playing field for higher welfare organic producers. These farmers are competing against “faux-ganic” industrial producers who profit from the public’s desire for higher welfare animal products while raising animals in factory farms. The rule also protects consumers currently paying a premium for organic food in the belief that the label is proof of higher welfare.

The USDA needs to heed the calls of the countless farmers and groups that support this urgently needed rule and the consumers who do not want to purchase cruelty when they buy USDA Organic.”

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July 7, 2016: Yesterday Farm Forward joined a coalition of thirteen other animal, environmental, and consumer protection organizations in applauding the USDA for proposing improved animal welfare requirements under the Certified Organic label.

For years Farm Forward has advocated improvements to organic requirements, and thanks to supporters like you we stopped Big Ag from derailing these important changes. Together we’ve fought hard to diminish widespread consumer confusion about the lives of animals on organic farms.

Farm Forward is pleased that the has USDA listened to consumers who respect animal welfare and that it is taking steps to align the Organic standards with our values. While the proposed standards are a step in the right direction, the new requirements fall short of addressing several key factors that affect animal welfare, including genetic health and meaningful access to the outdoors. Today, the coalition submitted a joint comment that urges the USDA to go even further by requiring:

• pain relief for certain physical alterations,
• minimum space requirements for pigs,
• a prohibition of manual blunt force trauma—also known as thumping—as a form of euthanasia for piglets,
• access to vegetation with an increase in the minimum outdoor space requirements for birds, and
• perches and better lighting for birds.

While we commend the USDA for their long-awaited efforts and believe that this proposed rule will ensure greater transparency within the Organic program, there are other leading animal welfare certifications—Animal Welfare Approved (AWA), Certified Humane (CH) and Global Animal Partnership (GAP)—that already have detailed standards addressing our range of concerns. Not all welfare certifications are created equal; labels that appear similar can mean entirely different things. That’s why we created BuyingPoultry, an authoritative rating system and database of poultry products, to help you learn which brands and certifications align with your values. As we advocate for greater transparency in the Certified Organic program, we can simultaneously ensure that the lives of millions of farmed animals are improved by looking for and purchasing other third-party certified animal products. Together, we can change the way America eats and farms.

You can read the coalition’s full comment here.

We can only continue this work with your support. Please consider making a donation today or contact us to learn more about our work.

Everyone knows that factory farming is bad for animals, humans, and the environment. Now, with our help, a growing number of financial institutions are realizing that it’s bad for investors, too. With input from Farm Forward, a groundbreaking new report calls into question the wisdom of investing in industrialized animal agriculture. Published by Farm Animal Investment Risk & Return (FAIRR), the report highlights the risks to investors posed by a wide array of environmental, governance, and social issues that stem from factory farming.

Environment Issues

The FAIRR report calls upon investors to carefully consider the material risks factory farms pose to successful investment. Climate change and increasing water scarcity top this list of problems with industrial farms that demand more investor scrutiny.1 The report suggests that the profitability of factory farming is threatened by some of the very problems that it creates. For instance, factory farms are both significant contributors to climate change (livestock operations emit more greenhouse gases than the entire transportation sector).2 and are likely to face severe financial strain as the planet heats up (a 21 percent increase in “heat stress” days is predicted for the cattle industry by 2045).3 Similarly, California dairies are currently losing millions of dollars in the midst of the state’s historic drought, even as factory farms continue to use more of California’s water resources than any other industry.4

Governance Issues

Savvy investors will also consider the inherent fragility of factory farming as a result of its reliance on direct and indirect government subsidies. Factory farms in the US enjoy approximately four billion dollars in annual benefits from the of grain subsidies provided by the US government.5 From 1997 to 2005, the Farm Bill put more than a billion dollars per year into the pockets of large corporate interests in the broiler industry, accelerating consolidation in the sector even though the Farm Bill should, hypothetically, support small farmers.6 Factory farms further benefit from the millions of dollars spent every year by the public to mitigate and remediate water pollution that they cause.7

Because industrialized agriculture relies so heavily on government assistance, FAIRR warns: “Changes in government policy, particularly subsidy support, present significant financial risks to animal factory farming.”8

Social Issues

FAIRR points to the risk of diseases like swine and avian influenza as another key concern for investors. In 2009, for instance, H1N1 Swine flu killed 150,000 people and cost the industry billions of dollars in lost revenue. According to Columbia University professor Raul Rabadan,9 evidence points to a factory farm as the origin of that outbreak.10 Just as alarming, however, is the rise of antibiotic-resistant pathogens, which public health officials have linked to the vast overuse of antibiotics in farmed animal production (80 percent of antibiotics in the US now go to farmed animals).11

Antibiotic overuse is especially problematic in the poultry industry, which continues to rely on antibiotics to keep breeding birds alive even as it has begun raising their offspring without them (to meet the growing demand for “antibiotic-free” chicken and turkey, increasingly the meat birds themselves aren’t being fed antibiotics). As FAIRR’s report puts it,12

If we see more comprehensive bans on antibiotics that constrain drug use in the entire chain of chicken production (including parent birds), we would see even more significant financial harm—it would require a complete restructuring of the infrastructure of the animal factory farm model.
—Farm Animal Risk & Return, Factory Farming: Assessing Investment Risk

Investing in the New Future of Food

As the risks of investing in factory farming become more apparent, plant-based companies dedicated to providing alternatives to factory-farmed products have become an increasingly attractive option. Meat consumption continues to fall in the US; meanwhile, companies like Hampton Creek Foods and Beyond Meat are growing at incredible speeds because they recognize the need for a new future of food, more humane and sustainable than industrial-scale animal agriculture.13

With smarter companies, smarter investors, and smarter consumers joining forces to shift the market away from factory farming, the future looks brighter than ever. Farm Forward is leading the way with innovative tools like BuyingPoultry, which makes it easy for consumers to add their voices to the cause and find food that aligns with their values.

A strong national movement is developing to ban one of the cruelest practices in animal agriculture—the use of cages and crates for confinement on factory farms. On November 4, 2008, Californians voted to pass one of the most important farmed animal protection legislation ever written in this country. The Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act—Proposition 2. It aimed to give farmed animals enough space to turn around and stretch their limbs, and remains the standard for laws that limit the abuses of animals on factory farms.

Seven years later, we’re continuing our work to ban these inhumane practices in other states. We have teamed up with Citizens for Farm Animal Protection to help pass a historic ballot initiative that would ban the confinement of farmed animals in Massachusetts. Similar measures have passed in other states, but this win in Massachusetts would be monumental because, unlike California’s Proposition 2 (which passed by a landslide despite the more than $10 million that opposition groups spent to defeat it), the Massachusetts ballot initiative defines specific space requirements for farmed animals.

Industry groups are fighting this ballot initiative, which would mandate that, starting in 2022, Massachusetts farms and businesses only produce and sell products from animals raised without the use of cages and crates. Those two words, “and sell,” are nationally unprecedented, and mean that any business that wishes to sell animal products in Massachusetts, no matter what state that business calls home, would forgo the use of cages and crates. A win in Massachusetts would likely lead to improvements in the lives of millions of farmed animals from coast to coast.

Industry groups will again likely spend millions fighting this measure, but we’re confident that the compassion of voters will again prevail. If you live in or near Massachusetts, please take advantage of this watershed moment to help us improve the lives of farmed animals! We can’t win without your help! One state and one law at a time, together, we’re going to change the way our nation eats and farms.

Want to know one of the greatest barriers to promoting better animal welfare and greater sustainability in farming? The fact that many federal and state laws function to make the worst kind of farming the most profitable. Eliminating governmental policies and subsidies that favor factory farming and redirecting resources to support best farming practices is an urgent agenda.

A recent report from the Global Development and Environment Institute (GDAE) at Tufts University gives us a clear example of just how much current policies favor the worst kinds of animal agriculture. The GDAE report, Hogging the Gains from Trade: The Real Winners from U.S. Trade and Agriculture Policies,1 details how government policies skew to increase the profits of multinational livestock firms at the expense of environmental and labor concerns. For example, the report argues that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and U.S. farm subsidies created a flow of goods and services between Mexico and the United States that heavily favored agribusiness firms such as Smithfield and dramatically altered the entire pork industry.2

Just how much did these farm subsidies end up benefiting industry? According to figures from a 2007 GDAE working paper on factory swine operations, farm subsidies pushed corn and soybean prices below the cost of production and allowed agribusiness to purchase feed at incredibly low rates.3 Hogging the Gains from Trade notes, “This ‘implicit subsidy’ to animal feed gave industrial hog farmers a 26 percent break on their feed costs, which represented a 15 percent reduction in the firms’ [Smithfield’s] operating costs.4 We estimated savings to the industry from below-cost feed at $8.5 billion over that nine-year period. Smithfield controlled roughly 30 percent of the hog market during that time, so its savings were about $2.5 billion.”5

$2.5 billion flowed from taxpayers pockets to a company infamous for poor animal welfare, pollution, and unfair labor practices. This is not the only example of Smithfield benefiting from governmental policies. In Eating Animals, Farm Forward board member Jonathan Safran Foer notes:

The year before Smithfield built the world’s largest slaughter-and-processing plant in Bladen County, the North Carolina state legislature actually revoked the power of counties to regulate hog factory farms. Convenient for Smithfield. Perhaps not coincidentally, the former state senator who cosponsored this well-timed deregulation of hog factories, Wendell Murphy, now sits on Smithfield’s board and himself was formerly chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Murphy Family Farms, a factory hog operation that Smithfield bought in 2000.

A few years after this deregulation in 1995, Smithfield spilled more than 20 million gallons of lagoon waste into the New River in North Carolina. . . . The spill released enough liquid manure to fill 250 Olympic-sized swimming pools. In 1997, as reported by the Sierra Club in their damning “Rapsheet on Animal Factories,” Smithfield was penalized for a mind-blowing 7,000 violations of the Clean Water Act—that’s about twenty violations a day. The US government accused the company of dumping illegal levels of waste into the Pagan River, a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay, and then falsifying and destroying records to cover up its activities. . . . Smithfield was fined $12.6 million, which at first sounds like a victory against the factory farm. At the time, $12.6 million was the largest civil-penalty pollution fine in US history, but this is a pathetically small amount to a company that now grosses $12.6 million every ten hours. Smithfield’s former CEO Joseph Luter III received $12.6 million in stock options in 2001.

Unfortunately, the Smithfield U.S.-Mexico case is just one example of multi-national factory farms reaping wild gains while creating a less sustainable, less humane, and less just food system. In his second annual report, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier De Schutter, noted the dominance of multi-nationals in agricultural market share and condemned the negative effects this has on food security and the right to food. His suggestions for systematic reform include the promotion of fair trade, implementing grievance mechanisms, adapting compliance standards to be more affordable, and supporting for farmers cooperatives through favorable laws, tax incentives, and capacity building programs.6

Until such support networks are in place or, at the very least, de facto subsidies to factory farms are eliminated, small farmers like Frank Reese need the help that Farm Forward and other nonprofits provide. Join us as we work to create a post-factory farm system that, in the finest spirit of American competition, let’s the best farm win.

Sign up for the Farm Forward newsletter to receive updates and important information about how you can get involved.

Select editorials:

Columbus Dispatch, “Deal on animal care means no fall ballot issue”

USA Today, “Antibiotics benefit farm animals (and people), but at what cost?”

New York Times Op-Ed, “The spread of superbugs”

Legislation to Improve the Lives of Animals

In the past, inadequate or nonexistent legislation to protect animals has kept the agribusiness industry—which is unlikely to make improvements on its own—from implementing significant changes in animal welfare. Fortunately, the last five years have seen some exciting possibilities for true legal protection of farmed animals in the form of progressive new legislation at the state level, including a recent victory in Ohio.

Having recently served on the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, and seen the tremendous public response to our report, and also brokered compromise legislation jointly sponsored by the Humane Society of the United States and the Colorado Livestock Association, I have great optimism regarding the future of farm animal welfare during the next decade. –Bernard Rollin, Ph.D., Farm Forward Board Member

SUPPORT PAMTA

Update: PAMTA was reintroduced to the 112th Congress as H.R. 965 (previously H.R. 1549) by Congresswoman Louise Slaughter (D-NY) on March 9, 2011 and immediately referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and the House Committee on Rules. The related Senate bill, S. 1211, was introduced by Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) on June 15, 2011. Unfortunately, analysis indicates that PAMTA has an extremely low chance of being enacted in this Congress.

H.R. 1549, the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act, or PAMTA, is proposed federal legislation that seeks to phase out the routine use of nontherapeutic antibiotics in farm animals – a common practice to promote growth and compensate for overcrowded, stressful, unsanitary conditions on factory farms – in order to maintain the effectiveness of antibiotics for treating sick people and animals.

Check out our feature about antibiotics in agriculture to learn more.

Advance the UEP-HSUS Agreement

Update: On June 18, 2012, Senate leaders denied consideration of the Egg Products Inspection Act Amendments of 2012 in the 2012 Farm Bill, although inclusion in the House’s Farm Bill is still possible. The HSUS and the UEP have agreed to extend the agreement until December 31, 2012. If no legislation is enacted by this time, the agreement will expire and HSUS will continue its state-by-state campaign for better conditions for hens in battery cages.

H.R. 3798 / S. 3239, the Egg Products Inspection Act Amendments of 2012, is a federal bill introduced to improve housing for egg-laying hens and provide a stable future for egg farmers. In July 2011, the United Egg Producers (UEP), which represents farmers raising approximately 95% of all laying hens in the U.S., and the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), the largest animal advocacy group in the world, adversaries for many years over the use of battery cages in egg production, formed an unlikely alliance to work together in pursuit of federal legislation to regulate the production of eggs in the United States. Pressured by the passage of a series of costly state-level laws, the UEP now argues that the federal legislation is necessary for the survival of its farmers. The proposed federal standards would: include cages that give hens up to 144 square inches of space each, compared with the 67 square inches that most hens have today; provide so-called habitat enrichments, like perches, scratching areas and nesting areas, that allow the birds to express natural behavior; prohibit feed- or water-withholding molting to extend the laying cycle; mandate labeling on all egg cartons nationwide to inform consumers of the method used to produce the eggs, such as “eggs from caged hens,” “eggs from hens in enriched cages,” “eggs from cage-free hens,” and “eggs from free-range hens;” and more.

While Farm Forward’s founder and CEO Aaron S. Gross, Ph.D. commented in a New York Times article that while “the industry moving from saying anything goes to saying there should be legal limits at the federal level is an enormous difference,” he also wrote in an open letter about the UEP-HSUS proposal that it has still not opened up critical dialogue about the unhealthy genetics of the birds themselves, and it is because of the “intensive breeding techniques of the modern industry that these birds have ended up in cages in the first place.”

As Farm Forward Board member and owner of Good Shepherd Poultry Ranch Frank Reese likes to say, “If you change production practices, you change production practices but if you change genetics, you change the industry.”

Tell Congress that you care about the welfare of egg-laying hens, and urge your legislators to support and co-sponsor H.R. 3798 / S. 3239!

Ban the Slaughter of Downed Animals

H.R. 3704, the Downed Animal and Food Safety Protection Act, introduced by Congressman Gary Ackerman (D-NY) and presently pending before the House Agriculture Committee, is a federal bill to amend the Humane Methods of Livestock Slaughter Act of 1958 that would permanently prohibit all downed animals – unhealthy livestock unable walk because they are diseased, injured, or ill – from entering the nation’s food supply, requiring instead that these animals be humanely euthanized. The legislation would close a loophole that currently allows the slaughter of downed calves. According to a 2003 Zogby poll, 77% of Americans find slaughter of non-ambulatory animals for human consumption unacceptable. Further, 72% of the confirmed cases of mad cow disease in North America since 1993 have involved downed animals. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court blocked a California law that would require euthanizing downed livestock at federally inspected slaughterhouses to keep the meat out of the nation’s food system; the justices unanimously concurred that the California law requiring euthanasia encroached on federal laws that don’t require immediate euthanizing. Whether enacted at the state or the federal level, a ban on downed-animal slaughter is necessary if industrial agriculture is to fully internalize the true costs of its unsustainable methods, such as foodborne illness and animal suffering, and avoid another record-setting meat recall like that seen in 2008.

Help us stop the slaughter of sick and injured animals! Follow this link to urge your legislators to co-sponsor and vigorously support the Downed Animal and Food Safety Protection Act, H.R. 3704.

Stop the Genetic Engineering of Fish

H.R. 520 / S. 229 and H.R. 521 / S. 230, sponsored by Congressman Donald Young (R-AK), are acts to to amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to prevent the approval of genetically engineered fish, and, if approved, require the labeling of engineered fish in order to inform consumers. H.R. 521 / S. 230 would prohibit the sale, purchase, transport, and possession for interstate/foreign commerce of genetically altered salmon, marine fish, or products containing such fish. Both bills were referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce in February 2011.

Farm Forward has strongly advocated for a return to heritage genetics in the poultry industry in support of both animal welfare and human health.

Please join us, the Center for Food Safety, and many others in support of H.R. 520 / S. 229 and H.R. 521 / S. 230!

Pending State Legislation

Massachusetts

Introduced in January 2013, H.1456 / S.2232 would prevent farmed animal cruelty, amending the animal cruelty statute in Massachusetts to prohibit the confinement of farmed animals in a manner that does not allow them to turn around freely, lie down, stand up, and fully extend their limbs. If the legislation is enacted, Massachusetts would join Rhode Island and a growing number of states that have stood up against extreme confinement of farmed animals. The Senate bill was reported favorably and referred to the Senate Ways and Means on June 30, 2014 with “No further action taken” on January 6, 2015.

State Legislative Victories

2012

In June, Rhode Island enacted legislation to prohibit gestation crates for pigs, extreme confinement of veal calves, and the routine docking of cows’ tails.

2011

In August, the Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board announced an effective date of September 29, 2011 for implementation of the finalized welfare standards that phase out veal and gestation crates, prohibit new battery cage facilities for laying hens, phase out tail-docking of dairy cattle, and provide other protections for farmed animals.

2010

In June, an imminent ballot measure in Ohio was preempted by an agreement that enacted a long list of animal welfare regulations.

2009

In October, Michigan passed historic legislation to protect farmed animals. In May, Maine became the sixth U.S. state to ban extreme confinement of farmed animals.

2008

In November, California voters passed Prop 2 in a landmark victory for farmed animals.

In July, California Governor Schwarzenegger signed Assembly Bill 2098 into law expanding the California Penal Code 599f established in 1994—now to include federally inspected slaughterhouses and other entities, such as marketing agencies or dealers—mandating immediate action to humanely euthanize non-ambulatory animals on their premises.

Update: On January 23, 2012, the Supreme Court of the United States overturned the requirement for federally inspected slaughterhouses, stating that the legislation preempted a federal law, the Federal Meat Inspection Act, which permits the slaughter of downed animals (except cows in most cases) if they pass an inspection by a USDA inspector. Fortunately, it is still illegal in California for any entity other than a federally inspected slaughterhouse to buy, sell, receive, or transport a non-ambulatory animals, including cattle, pigs, goats, and sheep, and California’s downer law is still the strongest in the nation.

In May, Colorado enacted legislation to permanently phase out both gestation crates and veal crates. The state government worked with HSUS and Farm Forward Board Member Bernard Rollin, Ph.D. to make this landmark bill a reality.

2007

Oregon followed Florida and Arizona’s example and banned gestation crates. This time it was not a ballot initiative but the state legislature itself that made the ban possible.

2006

Arizona voters approved – with 61% of the vote – an initiative to ban veal crates for calves and gestation crates for pigs throughout the state.

2004

In September, California signed into law a statute that prohibits the production and sale of foie gras, the fattened liver of a goose or duck that is made by cruelly force-feeding the bird in order to enlarge the its liver up to 10 times beyond normal size. In the state of Washington, the transportation (or acceptance) of “cattle, sheep, swine, goats, horses, mules, or other equine that cannot rise from a recumbent position or cannot walk” became a gross misdemeanor. The Washington legislature made the law effective immediately on March 31, 2004.

2003

Oregon made it a Class A misdemeanor to trade in non-ambulatory livestock.

2002

Florida voters approved a ballot initiative in banning hog gestation crates. This was the first time in history that any state prohibited an intensive method of production due to animal welfare concerns.

2001

In July, the Florida Legislature passed into law a statute forbidding the sale of any animal that is “unable to stand and walk unassisted,” and requiring their humane treatment.

1997

In July, Republican Governor Bill Graves of Kansas signed into law a statute that forbidding the sale of any animal “unable to rise to its feet by itself” at livestock markets, requiring the animal’s immediate and humane euthanization by an accredited veterinarian.

1996

In reaction to graphic media coverage of downed animals at meatpacking houses in Modesto, California and stockyards in St. Paul, Minnesota, the Colorado State Legislature passed House Bill 96-1340 into law, making it illegal to sell any animal that is “unable to rise to its feet by itself.”

1994

Farm Sanctuary helped to pass an initial downer law in California (California Penal Code 599f), which prevents dragging, pushing, holding, or selling downed animals at stockyards and slaughterhouses not inspected by the USDA.

1993

Illinois HPAC, a predecessor to Humane USA PAC, now the Humane Society Legislative Fund, was the first group of animal advocates to successfully pass legislation eliminating particular farmed animal abuses endemic to factory farming. Farm Forward Chairman Steven Gross led the small team of volunteers that, with some financial support from the Humane Society of the United States, passed the Humane Care for Animals Act. This important legislation went into effect on July 7, 1993.

A law preventing one of the most egregious forms of animal abuse in contemporary agriculture has just been overturned in California. The law, which Farm Forward has supported in California and other states, has protected the public from consuming meat from “downed” or “nonambulatory” animals—animals that are so sick or injured that they cannot stand or walk without assistance.1 On January 23, 2012, the US Supreme Court struck down the law, dealing a serious blow to animal welfare.

The California law required nonambulatory animals arriving at a slaughterhouse to be euthanized immediately, and prevented workers from using abusive means to move the animals.2 The law prohibited California slaughterhouses from either buying or selling nonambulatory livestock, including pigs, cows, sheep and goats. (Chickens and turkeys were not included,3 though the same problems with illness and injury are present in the poultry industry).4

California passed the law in response to a video released by The Humane Society of the United States in 2008. Filmed at a California slaughterhouse, the video captured employees attempting to get downed cows to walk by kicking, electrocuting, and dragging them with chains, as well as spraying pressurized water into their noses to simulate drowning.5

The video triggered the largest recall of beef in the history of the United States.6 Most of the recalled beef had already been consumed, and about 50 of the 143 million pounds had gone to The National School Lunch Program.7

Disturbingly, meat from downed animals is more likely to be diseased for two reasons. First, animals may be nonambulatory due to disease, making their meat—in the words of Ed Schafer when he served as Agriculture Secretary—“unfit for human food.”8 Second, animals that are not diseased but downed because of fatigue, stress, or stubbornness are more susceptible to disease because the animals end up lying in the refuse of other animals.9

The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision that the California law was preempted by a federal law, the Federal Meat Inspection Act, was not unexpected. Nevertheless, it was a major setback to states that find the current federal law inadequate. The Federal Meat Inspection Act and the accompanying regulations permit the slaughter of downed animals (except cows in most cases) if they pass an inspection by a USDA inspector.10

Reacting to the Court’s decision, the President and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States explained that “If the federal government had strong rules and laws on the books, there would be no reason for California or any other state to adopt a reinforcing statute. But it’s precisely because the Congress and the USDA are in the grip of the meat industry that we have anemic federal laws on the subject.”11

Despite the setback the Court’s decision represents, the fact that California passed the bill at all shows which direction the wind is blowing. We need to stay informed, stay vigilant, and continue to let our elected officials know that current policy on downed animals, battery cages, gestation crates, and the unsustainable use of antibiotics just isn’t working.

Sign up for the Farm Forward newsletter to receive updates and important information about how you can get involved.

About a decade ago a small group of animal advocates introduced a first-of-its-kind bill in the Illinois legislature to phase out the barren battery cages now used in the production of eggs—cages so small that most all of today’s hens cannot even stretch their wings. The bill was roundly defeated. The United Egg Producers (UEP) so strongly opposed the bill that UEP representative Gene Gregory refused to even discuss the bill with animal welfare leaders.

Yet on July 7 this past week, Gregory (now the President and CEO of the UEP) and the CEO of the nation’s largest animal welfare group, The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), announced that UEP and HSUS will cooperate to pass federal legislation that will phase out those same barren battery cages and replace them with larger “enriched cages.” It’s a fundamental change in the landscape of US animal protection.

No federal law has ever protected farmed animals except during slaughter and farmed birds have been excluded from even this protection, so the HSUS-UEP proposal is animal welfare history in the making. It’s also a history I’ve watched unfold from a unique angle.

When Gregory came to the Illinois legislative session a decade ago to oppose the bill introduced by Illinois Humane PAC, the Humane PAC representative he met was with Farm Forward’s then-CEO, Steve Gross, my father. I remember Steve’s frustration: “Gregory shook my hand perfunctorily and then adopted the poultry industry’s longstanding, informal SOP [standard operating procedure] to refuse to dialog with animal welfare advocates.”

The credit for breaking this dysfunctional pattern goes in large measure to HSUS’s CEO, Wayne Pacelle, who opened dialog between the American public and the poultry industry. His achievement was only possible because campaigns led by HSUS and Farm Sanctuary—supported by a massive coalition of groups including Farm Forward—had passed a series of state-level laws (like the one that failed in Illinois a decade ago) banning aspects of the intensive confinement of animals. A series of state-level regulations threaten to groups like the UEP more than a single, uniform national law. It was just plain common sense for the UEP to negotiate.

As historic as this new dialog is, it remains only a small step forward at the level of pragmatic change: by analogy, if egg-laying hens previously were confined to a closet, under the proposed HSUS-UEP agreement they will be confined to a walk-in closet. This is a meaningful and important, but also a limited improvement. The enriched cage system still prevents birds from engaging in many of the basic life activities that, well, make a bird a bird: running, jumping, feeling the sun, flapping one’s wings. Even more importantly, the joint HSUS-UEP proposal has not opened a conversation—not yet—about the unhealthy genetics of the birds themselves, which I and many welfare experts, like poultry farmer Frank Reese, would argue is today’s biggest welfare problem in the poultry industry.

The industry’s intensive breeding techniques, which changed the genetics of laying hens, led to these birds being caged in the first place. When these intensive breeding techniques managed to double the numbers of eggs hens laid each year,1 they also genetically compromised the immune systems of the birds. The industry isolated birds in cages so that they would be less likely to transmit disease. Cages, enriched or not, are an attempt to mitigate welfare problems introduced by the Frankenstein genetics of today’s laying hens.

Scientific studies have shown that today’s egg-laying hens have not only inadequate immune systems,2 but also fragile skeletons that result in a constant stream of bone breakages, and previously rare tumors3 and reproductive diseases.4 Although industry and animal advocates understand that genetics are the root cause of great suffering, few are talking about genetics because we have been, not without reason, focused on issues of how these birds are raised.

As the proposed federal legislation is discussed in more detail Farm Forward will be urging both parties to listen to something Frank Reese likes to say, “if you change production practices, you change production practices but if you change genetics, you change the industry.” Now that producers and advocates have agreed change is needed, it is time to discuss the 800 pound gorilla in the barn: breeding “high-efficiency” but unhealthy animals. In the end, it is only by addressing the genetics question that we can truly move farming forward. —Aaron Gross, Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Please consider a donation to support our efforts to make sure the most important issue in farmed animal welfare today—the problem of Frankenstein genetics—is taken seriously by policy makers. Join the Farm Forward mailing list below to receive updates and important information about how you can get involved.

Update (July 1, 2010): Just a few months after Farm Forward joined a broad coalition of groups working toward the passage of a ballot initiative in Ohio that would ban some of the cruelest practices in industrial agriculture, hundreds of thousands of signatures—more than enough to ensure that the measure would reach voters—were gathered, leading to an agreement among the Governor, Ohio Farm Bureau, and the coalition. In exchange for leaving the measure off of the 2010 ballot, a series of reforms will be enacted immediately. This is a huge victory in the fight against industrial agriculture. The details of the agreement are as follows:

• A moratorium on permits for new laying hen cage confinement facilities, including halting the impending construction of a pending six million-bird complex called Hi-Q in Union County, Ohio.
• A ban on using crates to confine veal calves, effective 2017.
• A ban on the construction of new gestation crates to confine sows, and requirements that all pork producers in Ohio must end their current use of gestation crates by 2025.
• A ban on the transport of downer cows for slaughter.
• A ban on strangulation of farm animals and mandatory humane euthanasia of sick and injured farm animals.

Original Feature

We’re excited to announce that Farm Forward has joined forces with Ohioans for Humane Farms to help end some of the cruelest practices in industrial agriculture. Ohioans for Humane Farms is spearheading a ballot initiative that “will require the Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board to adopt certain minimum standards that will prevent animal cruelty, improve health and food safety, support family farms and safeguard the environment throughout the state of Ohio.”1 Standing together with groups like Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), Greenpeace, Family Farm Defenders, and the Ohio Sierra Club, we will work in coalition to build on momentum from recent legislative victories across the country in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Maine, Michigan, and Oregon.

The coalition behind Ohioans for Humane Farms is comprised of advocates representing animal welfare, family farmers, food safety concerns, and environmental groups, and seeks to ban three common confinement practices: hog gestation crates, battery cages for egg-laying hens, and veal crates. These practices restrict animals’ mobility so severely that they cannot extend their limbs. Paul Shapiro, Senior Director of the factory farming campaign at HSUS, explains that “all the legislation says is that caged and crated farm animals be able to stand up, lie down, turn around, and spread their limbs.”2 The proposed regulations reflect policy suggestions put forth by the much-lauded Pew Commission in its report on industrial agriculture. The Pew Commission argued that by “most measures, confined animal production systems in common use today fall short of current ethical and societal standards.”3

Ohio is especially important to the fight against factory farming because of its central location and industry’s scale. Ohio is the second greatest egg-producing state and the ninth largest pork-producing state in the country. A victory in Ohio will have a ripple effect all across the nation.4 The need for Ohio legislation has been further underscored by a recent undercover investigation by Mercy For Animals, a nonprofit animal protection group, conducted this May and April revealing systematic and sadistic cruelty at Conklin Dairy Farms in Plain City, Ohio. After viewing video footage of the abuses, Farm Forward board member Dr. Bernard Rollin, distinguished professor of animal science at Colorado State University, asserted, “This is probably the most gratuitous, sustained, sadistic animal abuse I have ever seen. The video depicts calculated, deliberate cruelty, based not on momentary rage but on taking pleasure through causing pain to cows and calves who are defenseless.”

Anticipating the ballot initiative in November, agribusiness has mounted considerable opposition, launching a preemptive strike last year: a voter referendum, State Issue 2, to create what they called a “livestock standards board.” A “livestock standards board” sounds like a good idea but State Issue 2’s livestock standards board, now law, has no language that ensures animal welfare. In fact, without the kind of legislation Ohioans for Humane Farms seeks to pass, this board will function instead to give industry more power to continue with its current destructive practices.

Paid advertising in favor of Issue 2 was widespread both on television and online.5 The industry-funded advocacy group behind the messaging disguised its origins by calling itself “Safe Local Ohio Food” and used carefully crafted slogans that misrepresented the actual effect of the referendum. The livestock board was voted in and established through constitutional amendment in November of 2009.6 Critics have called the Safe Local Ohio Food movement a sham. Despite its attempt to brand itself as a movement of concerned citizens, local media revealed the group was funded by agribusiness sources intent on thwarting animal welfare reform.7

In order to implement true reform, Ohioans for Humane Farms must garner enough support to modify the 2009 amendment that created the livestock board.8 Ultimately, it will be up to Ohio voters to spread the word about this initiative and cast their votes in the November elections. We intend to help make that happen. For more information on how you can get involved see Farm Forward’s legislation page.

Ensuring the end of battery cages for egg-laying hens, gestation crates for pregnant pigs, and veal crates is the least we can do. With your support, Farm Forward is optimistic that these minimal standards will soon be law in yet another state.

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Late last year, while campaigning for California’s “Prop 2”—a ballot measure that required the phasing out of some of the most inhumane factory farm methods—Farm Forward declared that the tide of public opinion has turned against intensive confinement farming in a decisive way. The evidence that Americans are rejecting factory farming has continued to mount. Prop 2 is now law.

Within six months of that victory, Colorado passed similar but less comprehensive legislation. The work of Farm Forward board member Bernard Rollin was instrumental to that victory. Now, still less than a year since Prop 2’s passage, the Michigan State Legislature has passed a similarly progressive bill mandating increased animal welfare standards.

Michigan’s HB 5127, which passed both houses of the state legislature by wide margins (the House 86-20 and the Senate by 36-0), is expected to be signed into law when it reaches Governor Granholm’s desk. The bill will amend the Animal Industry Act to ensure that enclosures and tethering equipment must allow farmed animals enough room to stand, lie, turn around, and extend their limbs. HB 5127 specifically ameliorates the conditions endured by breeding sows, egg-laying hens, and veal calves by phasing out:

• sow gestation crates over the next ten years; making Michigan the 7th state to do so,
• hen battery cages over the next ten years; only the 2nd state to do so, and,
• veal crates over the next three years; the 5th state to do so.

These amendments will slowly make the lives of over ten million hens and approximately 100,000 sows more bearable.1

In its final iteration, HB 5127 earned the endorsement of the Humane Society of the United States, the Michigan Humane Society, and Farm Sanctuary. According to industry trade journals, the bill is also supported by the Michigan Farm Bureau and a wide range of cattle, poultry, and pig industry associations. While still resistant to change, even factory farmers know they must address the most egregious abuses or risk alienating consumers entirely. In announcing this victory, the President and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States, recognized the importance of the public/private collaborative process, stating, “With this measure, stakeholders from all sides came together to advance basic animal welfare concerns.”

Agribusiness interests are changing their strategy in the face of an increasingly organized and insistent public. Tonia Ritter, manager of the Michigan Farm Bureau’s State Governmental Affairs explained that HB 5127 began as an attempt by “Michigan farmers to meet the questions from society about how food comes from farms to their plate.” Instead of simply attempting to block this legislation, which has been the common industry response in the past, the Michigan Farm Bureau took steps to ensure they had a voice in the policy battle they foresaw. The more cooperative approach of Michigan’s agribusiness community did not come from within; they are responding to public demands, as Ritter herself suggested.

Farm Forward applauds these changes and especially the trend in agribusiness to sit at the negotiation table. That said, over the course of the next decade more than 6.3 billion laying hens will live and die without basic space requirements. This victory is to be celebrated but not overestimated.

Most importantly, we need to recognize that even though these laws mean real improvement for animals, they in no way take animals out of the dismal conditions of factory farms. They mitigate but don’t fundamentally change the disturbing state of animal agriculture. Even when these laws take effect, chickens, turkeys, and pigs especially will still live and die in ways that are inhumane according to commonsense standards. For example, these changes do nothing to alter what is arguably the greatest single factor contributing to farmed animal suffering: the fact that nearly 100 percent of chickens and turkeys have been genetically engineered to grow so large so fast that their very genetics destines them to suffer from a range of deformities, diseases, and structural problems.

At Farm Forward we believe America can do better than this. Small family farmers like those which sell their meat through Niman Ranch Pork Company or Good Shepherd Poultry Ranch already offer meat from animals raised largely or entirely outside of the factory system. And of course conscientious eaters don’t need to wait for legislation to choose to eat a factory-farm free diet. While Farm Forward fully supports legislative change, we also work to pair these efforts with programs that support the highest welfare methods. As momentum builds we can do more than demand that the worst abuses end. We can take the factory out of farming.

For more information on the wave of animal welfare legislation sweeping the country and the growth of alternative animal agriculture, join our mailing list. Ohio residents, you may be next…

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There was a lot more at stake in the 2008 elections than you might think. On November 4, 2008, Californians voted on what was perhaps the most important piece of legislation ever drafted to help farmed animals in this country. The Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act—Proposition 2—sought to give veal calves, layer hens, and breeding pigs enough space to turn around and stretch their limbs. Prop 2 set the standard for progressive laws limiting the abuses of animals on factory farms in the largest agricultural state in the country.

We may disagree about the details of what laws should protect animals in industrial agriculture, but we can all agree, at minimum, that a fundamental requirement of good animal welfare is the elemental ability to move one’s body—simply to turn around or stretch a wing.” –Statement of Support for the California Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act, signed by Michael Chabon, J.M. Coetzee, Jonathan Safran Foer, Jonathan Franzen, Nicole Krauss, Michael Pollan, Alice Sebold, and Alice Walker

The changes outlined in the bill were consistent with the policy suggestions of an authoritative Pew Commission report on animal agriculture, which concluded that factory farming methods present “an unacceptable level of risk to public health and damage to the environment, as well as unnecessary harm to the animals we raise for food.” If we are to reverse the devastating effects of factory farming, we must take the first step of vocally supporting initiatives like Proposition 2.

The bill, which outlined only a bare minimum of improvements essential to making the lives of farmed animals more bearable faced strong opposition from a coalition of pro-factory-farming interests. But the tide of opinion about the way our culture treats animals is changing rapidly—a wide array of voices from progressive ranchers like Bill Niman to nonprofit organizations and conservative religious leaders have come out in support of Proposition 2.

In a further testament to this progressive cultural shift, eight of the world’s most respected and recognized writers joined with Farm Forward to endorse Proposition 2. “When writers of this stature speak out to curb factory farming—speak out against cruelty to animals—it has a special meaning,” said Farm Forward’s Chief Executive Officer, Aaron Gross, “J.M. Coetzee’s works have helped millions internationally confront South African apartheid just as Alice Walker’s books have helped millions confront the legacy of American slavery. These writers have been our conscience and stretched our moral imaginations. When voices like these come together and call for changes in farming, it’s time for change.”

For information on how you can join these writers and help ensure that important bills like this are made into law, visit Citizens For Farm Animal Protection.

Michael Chabon is the author of the highly acclaimed bestsellers Wonder Boys, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, and most recently, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2001.

Nobel Prize winner J.M Coetzee has often spoken out against the excesses of factory farming, notably in his 2004 novel Elizabeth Costello, which explores human responsibility to animals, its philosophical implications, and its meaning in our daily lives. Coetzee is also a celebrated literary critic and translator.

Time magazine ranks Jonathan Safran Foer among the writers who have become a “voice of this generation.” He is the author of bestsellers Everything Is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and a Farm Forward board member.

Jonathan Franzen’s 2001 novel The Corrections was included on Time magazine’s list of the 100 best English-language novels. His nonfiction, including the collection of essays, How to Be Alone, and his memoirs, The Discomfort Zone, have cemented his role as one of the most important writers of the 21st century.

Nicole Krauss’ breakthrough novel, The History of Love, was an immediate sensation in 2005, becoming a New York Times best-seller and book list staple. Alfonso Cuarón, director of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Y tu Mamá También, is making the book into a film. Publishers Weekly wrote that Krauss’ “imagination encompasses many worlds.”

Michael Pollan’s 2006 critique of the food industry, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, was named one of the 10 best books of the year by the New York Times and the Washington Post, and his latest work, In Defense of Food, continues his groundbreaking contributions to our understanding of the ethics of eating.

Alice Sebold’s debut novel, The Lovely Bones, has been translated into more than 40 languages and is currently being made into a film by The Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson. She is also the author of critically acclaimed bestsellers Lucky and The Almost Moon.

In addition to being recognized as one of America’s most important writers, Alice Walker is a highly respected advocate for environmental and social justice issues. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for The Color Purple in 1982.

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