In 2020, Farm Forward began testing for antibiotic residues in samples of Global Animal Partnership (GAP) Animal Welfare Certified meat from Whole Foods Market. Our testing is ongoing, but the early findings are troubling: despite their claims, GAP and Whole Foods have failed to prevent animals treated with drugs from entering their supply chains, raising questions about all of the claims they make about their meat products. Our results were confirmed by the findings of an extensive antibiotic testing program, which revealed that a significant percentage of GAP-certified, “antibiotic free” cattle came from feedlots where animals tested positive for antibiotics. In this post we offer details about the nature of our testing program, the results of our investigation, and the implications of our findings.

Background

Due to their poor genetic health and the crowded conditions in which they’re confined, animals on factory farms are often given drugs in subtherapeutic doses to promote growth and keep them alive in conditions that would otherwise stunt their growth and even kill them. Consumers pay more for products bearing the Animal Welfare Certified mark in part because GAP prohibits the use of antibiotics for animals within its program, and for good reason—antibiotics are used to treat sick animals, and sick animals suffer.

After serving on GAP’s board of directors since its inception, Farm Forward resigned in April 2020 because of concerns that the vast majority of meat products certified by GAP still come from factory farms. Because GAP has shown a pattern of catering to the industry by welcoming modified factory farms into its program, we suspected that drugs may be present in the meat it certifies. In 2017, Farm Forward used its position on GAP’s board to push for antibiotic testing, but GAP’s leadership refused. Because nobody is testing meat to verify claims made by meat producers, the only way to determine whether GAP is living up to its promises was to begin testing products ourselves.

In 2020, Farm Forward began purchasing GAP-certified meat from Whole Foods locations in Chicago, Salt Lake City, and San Francisco for testing by Trilogy Analytical Laboratory and Health Research Institute, two state-of-the-art, ISO-accredited testing facilities. Meat samples are frozen immediately after purchase and shipped overnight to the laboratory, where they’re stored in lab-grade refrigerators until they can be tested, typically within days. To ensure samples aren’t contaminated, we follow strict operating procedures for our tissue sampling and shipping, and we keep detailed records along the way to guarantee the provenance of each product. Samples are tested using mass spectrometry, the same technique used by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and other food safety agencies.1

Results

Our first positive result, for an antibiotic called monensin, came from a sample of ground beef purchased from a Whole Foods store in San Francisco. Monensin, which is in a class of drugs called ionophores, is a feed additive used widely as a growth promoter and prophylactic antibiotic for cattle raised for meat. Because it serves the dual purpose of increasing yield while also preventing illness, monensin is known to offer a return on investment of roughly $20 per animal.2 As a result, meat producers have a tremendous incentive to use drugs like monensin as widely as possible. The product that tested positive was USDA Certified Organic and Animal Welfare Certified by GAP—and monensin is prohibited by both certifications.

Our testing also discovered residues of two antiparasitic drugs, fenbendazole and clopidol, in multiple products. These and other antiparasitics are used routinely on factory farms, and while they are technically permitted within GAP’s Animal Welfare Certified program, their widespread use is worrisome.

The term “antibiotic” includes but obscures antiparasitic drugs as a discrete category of medication used within animal agriculture. The overuse of antiparasitics like fenbendazole and clopidol creates drug-resistant parasites in the same way the overuse of antibacterial antibiotics creates drug-resistant bacteria.3 The products we purchased from Whole Foods that tested positive for fenbendazole and clopidol were not Certified Organic, but the Certified Organic program has a blanket prohibition on synthetic antimicrobial drugs. GAP’s Animal Welfare Certified program, on the other hand, only prohibits a narrow range of specific drugs, which means producers have a great deal of freedom to administer a variety of medications on farms. As a result, these drugs are often used prophylactically to prevent densely packed animals on factory farms from falling ill instead of finding husbandry solutions to ongoing health and welfare problems. Nearly half (45 percent) of the cattle livers we tested contained traces of these compounds.

Implications

Without antibiotic and antiparasitic drugs, it would be less profitable to house cattle on feedlots, where they suffer in cramped, filthy conditions while being fed an unnatural diet that causes them discomfort.4 The stress of life on a feedlot compromises cows’ immune systems, making them even more susceptible to diseases that are abundant in crowded environments.5

GAP and other welfare certifications prohibit the use of drugs like monensin in part because they recognize that it is inhumane to use medications to address problems caused by the conditions in which animals are raised. The best way to address these issues is through husbandry techniques that have been used for centuries to keep cattle healthy, and by allowing them to spend their lives on pasture.

Although GAP and Whole Foods rightly prohibit the use of antibiotics (apart from animals who are diagnosed with an illness) within their supply chains, testing has revealed that they have failed to meet their promises. Unlike Whole Foods, conventional grocery chains like Kroger, Trader Joes, and Walmart do not prohibit the use of drugs within their supply chains, so they are used openly and abundantly. Whole Foods is supposed to be different. If premium retailers like Whole Foods won’t take steps to keep these drugs out of products on their shelves, no one will.

It’s time for GAP and Whole Foods to commit to phase out all factory farm practices for all of the operations they certify and sell, and to do more to promote plant-based alternatives until they can live up to their promises to shoppers. Sign our petition to stop Whole Foods’ humanewashing today.

Every Thanksgiving Farm Forward is asked to help inform consumers about where to purchase a humanely raised turkey. For years we have tried our best to provide accurate and honest answers to these questions, relying on independent welfare certifications like Global Animal Partnership (GAP), the label that certifies meat at Whole Foods Market. This year, as we’ve deepened our investigation into the widespread practice of humanewashing, we realized that in order to responsibly educate consumers, we need to first understand the impact that certifications like Whole Foods’ GAP label have on shoppers.

We want to know:

1. When shoppers buy meat with Whole Foods’ GAP label, do their expectations match the reality of how those animals were raised?
2. Does Whole Foods’ GAP label make shoppers better informed, or more confused, about animal welfare practices?

These are questions Farm Forward sought to answer in a survey we commissioned this September.1 What we learned is that very few Americans (9 to 11 percent) understand what GAP certification labels mean, with 40 percent believing that the labels indicate better welfare practices than they actually do.

This confusion benefits the lowest welfare meat producers at the expense of the highest welfare meat producers. Moreover, a “halo effect” of top brands benefits not only the worst producers at Whole Foods, but also brands at other retailers that use bogus labels and sham certifications on their meat products. The outcome is that consumers are confused and mistrustful of labels and can’t make good choices when it comes to purchasing high welfare animal products, even at trusted retailers like Whole Foods.

Download the full infographic, here.

The Data Shows: Whole Foods Customers Do Not Know What They Are Buying

Many consumers looking for a humanely raised turkey this Thanksgiving will go to Whole Foods and pay more than they would at a conventional supermarket, and with good reason: all products sold through Whole Foods’ meat counters are certified by GAP, the largest independent animal welfare certification in the US.2

So, are Whole Foods customers who care about animal welfare getting what they believe they pay for? That depends on what they believe the GAP labels on Whole Foods meat actually means.

When shown an image of Whole Foods’ generic GAP label,3 Americans were asked if they agreed or disagreed with statements about how animals certified under this label were actually raised.

Generic GAP label found on meat at Whole Foods

They responded as follows:

• 33 percent agree the GAP label means animals were raised their whole lives on a pasture.
• 39 percent agree the GAP label means animals were given consistent access to the outdoors.
• 40 percent agree the GAP label means animals were subjected to no physical modifications by humans (e.g. no removal of cows’ horns).
• 40 percent agree the GAP label means animals were raised on a farm/pasture that exceeds minimum environmental standards.
• 39 percent agree the GAP label means animals were not genetically modified to grow unnaturally large/quickly.4

Only 9 to 11 percent of respondents disagreed with these statements, suggesting that only a small minority understand that this generic label doesn’t necessarily mean that animals are raised on pasture, given consistent access to the outdoors, spared from painful procedures that are the norm on factory farms, or not genetically modified for fast growth.

Advocates for GAP and other independent animal welfare certifications will say that these certifications, even at their lowest tiers, do mandate welfare conditions on farms that are better than those on most uncertified farms, and that’s true. When it comes to animal welfare, GAP-certified products are likely somewhat better than the very worst meat products in America.

But these Whole Foods suppliers still raise animals on factory farms, and under conditions that customers broadly consider to be inhumane. Notably, regardless of what they thought animal welfare certifications actually meant, 45 percent of survey respondents agreed with this statement: “Any label that certifies high animal welfare needs to ensure that animals are raised continuously on a pasture.” Only 11 percent of respondents disagreed.

The “Halo Effect” Benefits the Worst Welfare Suppliers

Supporters of GAP will also tell you that some GAP producers raise animals under some of the best welfare conditions in America—on pasture, with better genetics, and more—and that the Step system offers guidance for consumers about which of its farms achieve these high marks. This is also true. Products certified at GAP Steps 5 and 5+ feature most or all of the positive welfare conditions mentioned in our survey. However, the survey also found that many consumers may not be able to distinguish between lower and higher Step labels.

When we created our survey, Farm Forward’s hypothesis was that, due in part to deceptive marketing of GAP and Whole Foods products, many shoppers may assume that the top tiers of GAP are the norm for all GAP-certified products.

GAP adorns its generic certification label with bucolic imagery despite the fact that its GAP Step 5 and 5+ products are the only Steps in the program even close to achieving that expectation, and they are the rarest products you can find—many Whole Foods stores don’t carry any Step 5 or 5+ poultry products. The majority of poultry products lining Whole Foods’ store shelves are certified to Steps 1 and 2 which, despite marketing efforts to persuade us otherwise, are factory farms modified only slightly, where the birds may not even have consistent access to the outdoors.

Historically, all GAP-certified products had to be labeled with the specific Step to which each product was certified. In other words, if a product was certified to Step 1, each package was required to feature a label indicating that the product was certified to GAP’s Step 1 standards. The generic certification label shown above, which omits details about the Step to which the product has been certified, was created more recently, and producers can now opt into using this generic label instead of displaying their specific Step. By making the Steps more difficult to distinguish at the point of sale, GAP has created a loophole through which lowest welfare producers benefit from the “halo effect” of GAP’s highest tiers. Unsurprisingly, the generic label has become a popular choice among Whole Foods’ lowest welfare suppliers.

Retailers like Whole Foods and the brands they carry profit from the halo of GAP’s highest welfare farms because customers are willing to pay more for products that meet these expectations. Would shoppers pay the same premium prices if they understood that many products on Whole Foods’ shelves come from only marginally better factory farms?

Conclusions: Whole Foods Customers Have Good Reason to Feel Deceived

Whole Foods and other retailers give the impression that animal welfare certifications help their customers identify products that best align with their values. However, the results of our survey suggest that these certifications cause confusion and create mistrust: 39 percent of survey respondents agreed with the statement, “I get confused by the different animal welfare labels,” and 48 percent agreed with the statement, “I don’t believe food certifications are completely honest.”

All animal welfare labels, even independent certifications like GAP, have features that are designed to confuse and mislead consumers into believing that conditions on farms are better than they truly are; GAP’s generic label, which obscures the nuances of their once-progressive Step system, is just one example.6  Unlike GAP, which despite its deceptive marketing tactics is among the most rigorous and legitimate animal welfare certifications, many certifications, including United Egg Producers Certified and One Health Certified (OHC), were created by the meat industry for the sole purpose of assuaging consumers’ fears about conditions on factory farms without improving welfare standards.

But according to the results of our survey, many shoppers are unable to distinguish between independent certifications, like GAP, and industry marketing tools, like OHC—a deceptive certification created by one of the country’s largest chicken producers, Mountaire. When survey respondents were shown images of OHC and generic GAP labels, a similar percentage agreed with statements that the labels ensure animals are raised on pasture.7 These results raise serious questions about whether independent and well-intentioned animal welfare certifications do more harm than good in the absence of regulation and consumer education.

See the results of the survey here and our factsheet here.

In past years, Farm Forward has recommended Whole Foods and GAP among sources of higher welfare turkeys for Thanksgiving. But Whole Foods customers clearly want and expect better than they may be getting, so we can no longer recommend them.

Our survey revealed that when shoppers buy GAP-certified products from Whole Foods they imagine an animal who was raised on pasture, not on a factory farm. But very few of the turkeys sold at Whole Foods actually meet that expectation, even though customers are paying premium prices for them. And if that reality is too unpleasant for shoppers to stomach, Whole Foods should take factory farmed products off its shelves.

How well do you understand animal welfare labels? Join the thousands of others taking the quiz this season, and share your results!

Massive News: A first-of-its-kind campaign launched by Farm Forward in 2014 has resulted in the adoption of a new technology that spares day-old chicks from being slaughtered shortly after they hatch. On December 22, 2018, The Guardian reported that the first “no-kill” eggs have reached grocery store shelves in Europe.

While no industry that raises animals for human consumption can ever be “no-kill,” broad egg industry adoption of in-ovo sexing technology could prevent the needless suffocation or maceration of at least 4-6 billion male chicks per year. Maceration—a.k.a. grinding up fully conscious baby birds—remains the most common practice for disposing of unwanted male chicks within the egg industry, but this cruel practice may soon be largely abandoned for more humane and, crucially, more profitable in-ovo sexing techniques. Rather than hatching and sexing future egg laying hens, in-ovo sexing technology allows egg producers to determine the sex of an egg days after it’s laid, long before it hatches, eliminating the need for male chicks, who are useless to the egg industry, to hatch at all.

Prior to Farm Forward’s campaign against Unilever in 2014, no animal protection group had sought to secure corporate commitments to end maceration, nor were we aware of any major governmental, corporate, or advocacy efforts suggesting that viable alternatives might be possible. “Momentum on the issue began to grow in 2014,” said The Washington Post, “when Unilever, which owns Hellman’s mayonnaise and other egg-using companies, committed to supporting in-ovo technology research and adopting it.”

Unilever, which uses millions of eggs in their products, is an industry leader on animal welfare and sustainability—they struck us as the company most likely to lead the charge. Following our campaign and subsequent negotiations, Unilever pledged to: 1) state publicly that the routine practice of macerating day-old chicks did not conform to their animal welfare policy, 2) invest in identifying and implementing an alternative to the practice, and 3) explore egg-free alternatives for their products, particularly in the event that an alternative to maceration was not found.

As we’d hoped, following Unilever’s groundbreaking public statements against the killing of male chicks the rest of the world was quick to follow. In March 2015 the German government announced that it sought to end and ban the practice of culling male chicks by 2017. Following negotiations with The Humane League, in June 2016 the United Egg Producers, an industry trade group representing 95% of U.S. egg producers, pledged to end the process of culling male chicks by 2020 “or as soon as” the technology becomes “commercially available and economically feasible.” In October 2016 The Washington Post reported that Vital Farms, a popular egg company in the U.S. that follows industry-leading welfare practices, had pledged to adopt the technology.

By the end of 2016 there was an international race to develop viable technology to address what had to us always seemed a glaring and tractable welfare problem. Oh, and in February 2016 Unilever announced plans to launch a new egg-free, vegan mayo.

Farm Forward’s extensive experience leading high-level negotiations and advocacy campaigns remains a crucial part of global efforts to change the way our world eats and farms. We see opportunities where others see obstacles, and with your help we can continue to break new ground in the fight to end factory farming. These and future victories are not possible without your support.

In May 2014, Farm Forward identified a unique opportunity to apply pressure to a multinational corporation toward a first-of-its-kind victory for male breeding chicks within the egg industry. Deemed worthless by the egg industry, hundreds of millions of male chicks are killed each year in the US alone, where day-old chicks are typically ground up while fully conscious (the industry calls this practice maceration). While maceration is an industry-wide problem, Unilever, the third largest consumer goods company in the world, has been given high marks from the welfare community for improving animal welfare standards within its supply chain.

In June 2014, Farm Forward launched BuyingMayo.com and two accompanying viral videos to raise awareness about the practice of maceration by targeting Unilever’s Best Foods and Hellmann’s mayonnaise brands, which use hundreds of millions of eggs each year in the US alone. Visitors to BuyingMayo.com were asked to sign a petition requesting that Unilever develop an alternative to the practice of maceration within its supply chain.

In just two months, nearly half a million people watched our videos and more than ten thousand people signed our petition, and through Facebook and Twitter millions more were exposed to our messaging about the cruelty within the egg industry. Shortly after the campaign launched, Farm Forward entered negotiations with Unilever’s corporate affairs department, which requested that HSUS and Compassion in World Farming—which have praised Unilever’s animal welfare policies in the past—also join the discussion. Farm Forward offered to place a moratorium on our campaign if Unilever: 1) agreed that the routine practice of macerating day-old chicks did not conform to their animal welfare policy, 2) committed to investing in identifying and implementing an alternative to the practice, and 3) pledged to explore egg-free alternatives for their products, particularly in the event that an alternative to maceration was not found.

At the end of August, Unilever agreed to Farm Forward’s terms and updated their global website to reflect their new welfare policy. Unilever is now the only company in the world to have taken a stand against this industry-wide practice and is actively pursuing alternative technology for their entire supply chain.

In the 1990s, pig farmer Paul Willis realized that his farm’s future was no longer secure. Pressure was at an all-time high either to join the factory system or to get out of the hog business altogether.

When factory farming first began taking over the hog industry, many farmers invested in the new industrial methods enthusiastically. Other farmers were horrified by the changes. Whether farmers were for or against the factory system, the overwhelming majority were put out of business entirely. Willis, who would rather stop pig farming than confine his animals like the industry’s, was one of the very few fortunate enough to save his farm without sacrificing his commitment to good animal husbandry.

He saved himself with a simple idea—a new name for something that he and his family had been practicing for generations: “free range pigs.” Inspired by the humane farming message articulated by Farm Forward Senior Animal Welfare Advisor Diane Halverson, Willis reached out to consumers—those of us who, as he likes to say, vote “by proxy” on the nation’s farming practices through the foods we buy. He gambled that consumers would appreciate the more sustainable, humane, and community-friendly methods he used to raise his animals and be willing to pay a fair price for it. He was right.

Ultimately, Willis became head of a new pork division for Niman Ranch, which at the time was known among its competitors and customers for producing beef according to higher animal welfare guidelines. He worked to bring the nation’s few remaining small family hog farmers into the Niman Ranch cooperative system, which allowed its members to get a slightly higher price for animals they raised according to the company’s animal welfare standards. Since Willis joined Niman Ranch, he has grown their network to include some 500 pig farmers. Today, demand for their meats is so high that it far exceeds what they are able to produce. Niman Ranch pork is distributed nationally at Chipotle restaurants, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods Market, and is touted by some of the most famous and influential chefs in the world, including Mario Batali, David Chang, and Martha Stewart.

If you choose to eat pork, pork produced by Niman Ranch or that otherwise bears the Animal Welfare Approved or Global Animal Partnership (tier 4, 5, and 5+) certifications are your best choices. Even these markers aren’t perfect, though; they allow certain practices like castration without pain relief that compromise welfare. Presently only pork products marked as tier 5 or 5+ by Global Animal Partnership truly minimize animal suffering.

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

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.

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Through an absorbing investigation into recent, high-profile animal abuse scandals involving one of the largest kosher slaughterhouses in the world, Farm Forward Founder and CEO Aaron Gross makes a powerful case for elevating the category of the animal in the study of religion in his new book The Question of the Animal and Religion: Theoretical Stakes, Practical Implications.

Major theorists of religion have almost without exception approached religion as a phenomenon that radically separates humans from other animals, but Gross rejects this paradigm, arguing that animals are intimately involved in the phenomena of religion. Our relationships with animals—especially farmed animals—have important religious dimensions. Religion has contributed to the attitudes that made factory farming possible and is increasingly a powerful force challenging factory farming. The Question of the Animal and Religion shows how religion and animals are bound together, for better and for worse.

Gross begins by detailing the animal abuse and related scandals that occurred at the Postville, Iowa Agriprocessors kosher slaughterhouse. The New York Times originally broke the story in 2004,1 leading to an enormous and ongoing outpouring of responses from the American and international Jewish community ever since. Gross argues that without a proper theory of “animals and religion,” we cannot fully understand how and why the events at Agriprocessors took place, or why. more than a decade later, the images of the animals that suffered there continue to inspire action.

“Starting from the scandal evoked by the revelation of grossly cruel practices in kosher slaughterhouses in the United States, and the subsequent defense of these practices by leading figures in Orthodox Jewry, Aaron Gross proceeds to a wide-ranging exploration into the justification of slaughter in Abrahamic religion and into our willed blindness to the animal as a religious subject. His philosophical and theological inquiries are driven by well-justified ethical concern at what factory farming, buttressed by so-called animal science, tells about the age we live in.”
—J.M. Coetzee, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature

Subsequent chapters recognize the significance of animals to the study of religion in the work of Ernst Cassirer, Emile Durkheim, Mircea Eliade, Jonathan Z. Smith, and Jacques Derrida, as well as contributions from indigenous peoples’ understanding of animals to the study of religion. Gross concludes by extending the Agriprocessors scandal to the activities at slaughterhouses of all kinds, calling attention to the religious attitudes currently informing the regulation of “secular” slaughterhouses.

“With this highly original and exciting book, Aaron S. Gross stands at the cutting edge of a radical reconsideration of the nature of religiosity and theological reflection.”
—Dr. Susannah Heschel, Eli Black Professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College.

 

“Echoing two heartbreaking cries to heaven, separated by eighteen hundred years—the plea of a calf seeking refuge from kosher slaughter in the robes of Rabbi Judah the Prince and the screams of cattle half-butchered but still alive in the now-infamous ‘kosher’ meat-processing plant in Postville, Iowa—this work makes its own unforgettable plea. . . . There will be no getting around this book.”
—Dr. Kimberley Patton, Harvard University.

Read an excerpt of The Question of the Animal and Religion and purchase the book either on Amazon or via Columbia University Press. (Receive a 30% discount if purchased directly through Columbia University Press using discount code GROQUE.)

With a donation of $50 or more, Farm Forward will send you a complimentary, signed copy of the book, upon requests made to info@farmforward.com after donating.

To stay up to date on Farm Forward’s work to end factory farming and learn ways you can help, make sure that you are subscribed to our newsletter.

American entrepreneurship has changed the world more than once and will play a key role in defeating the factory farm. Farm Forward spoke to executives from two companies that recently turned the head of Bill Gates: Hampton Creek Foods and Beyond Meat. These compassionate companies are using technology and plants to create “cleaner food” that replicate animal products.

Americans are eating less and less meat,1 but global meat consumption is expected to double by 2050.2 “The world’s supersized appetite for meat is among the biggest reasons greenhouse gas emissions are still growing rapidly,” said Worldwatch Institute President Robert Engelman. “It’s largely a matter of rethinking meat at both ends of the production-consumption trail.”3

Never in the history of animal agriculture have consumption habits and production methods changed so radically and with such disastrous effects as they have in the past 70 years. Ninety-nine percent of meat, dairy, and egg products produced in the United States now come from factory farms.4 This cruel and unsustainable system has had enormous costs to animal welfare, the environment, and public health.

From college students majoring in business to CEOs like Bill Gates and Twitter co-founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams, the business world is increasingly our ally in the shift to a more sustainable, ethical, and healthy way of producing food. The system is ripe for reinvention.

WHERE TO BEGIN: THE CHICKEN OR THE EGG?

Over ninety billion eggs are produced in the United States annually,5 but many are not destined for use in omelets or eggs benedict. As Hampton Creek Foods tells us, a third of those eggs are used invisibly, meaning they are used as ingredients in processed or prepared foods like baked goods, mayonnaise, and sauces.

Hampton Creek Foods’ mission is to “replace these invisible eggs with a plant-based substitute that not only alleviates the suffering of egg-laying hens, but is more sustainable, less expensive, and better for our health as well.”

So how does Hampton Creek Foods replicate an egg? After all, it’s not only the taste that’s important to capture, but also eggs’ texture and cohesive quality.

“We look at hundreds of different plant proteins and screen them for functionality in different applications—how they work in emulsifications, can they help with leavening in baked goods, etc.,” Hampton Creek Foods’ CEO Josh Tetrick told us. “By testing large varieties of proteins, we are able to match, and in some cases surpass, the capabilities of an egg.”

Similarly, Beyond Meat is a company motivated by health, environmental, and animal welfare concerns to find a plant-based substitute for poultry.

Our goal is to provide consumers with clean, plant-based proteins that perfectly replicate the taste, texture, and nutritional benefits of meat. We share our customers’ enthusiasm for improving their health, reducing their ecological footprint, and improving animal welfare and are happy to be of service one savory, delicious, protein-packed bite at a time.” —Ethan Brown, Founder and CEO of Beyond Meat.

Brown acknowledges that creating Beyond Meat was a long and complicated process, but it looks like their hard work has paid off:

“We use super clean ingredients such as soy and pea proteins in a proprietary heating, cooling, and pressurization [process] to create delicious consumable meat that offers consumers 18 grams of protein per 3 ounce serving and 120 calories. Plus, these plant-based strips have no saturated or trans fat and are cholesterol free, gluten free, dairy free, meat free, egg free, GMO free, hormone free, antibiotic free, and guilt free.”

In an interview with Bill Gates, author Michael Pollan explains that cost was one reason why plant-based meat substitutes were not as viable in the past. “Mock meats of various kinds have been around for years, but … the price has been high: higher in many cases than real meat which, when you remember they’re mostly made from soy, makes little sense. But the market was small and specialized, and the economies of scale probably weren’t there.”

Hampton Creek Foods and Beyond Meat have been recognized by Bill Gates as leaders in the growing movement to harness innovation and technology to fix some of the biggest challenges posed by our food system.6

Farm Forward is encouraged to see that two of the most innovative companies in the clean food movement are focusing on poultry products, as no other farmed animal suffers more than chickens and turkeys in today’s factory farming system.

As consumers increasingly become aware of the factory farm system’s far-reaching and devastating consequences, the market for plant-based products has expanded, incentivizing efforts to improve quality and allowing production costs to decrease.

Impressive progress has already been made, and as more resources are put into research and development for solutions to these challenges, who knows how much further we can go in finding alternatives to factory farming? We believe these innovations to food production will be integral to changing the way our nation eats and farms.

With help from Hampton Creek Foods, Beyond Meat, and Farm Forward’s own initiative—BuyingPoultry.com—we will begin to shift the market share to choices that are not only highest welfare, but choices that actively work to reduce our ecological footprint.

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Farm Forward Board Member and 4th-generation Kansas farmer Frank Reese Jr. is on a mission to revolutionize the poultry industry by raising heritage turkeys and chickens in high welfare conditions. His latest achievement is a new, state-of-the-art barn at Good Shepherd Poultry Ranch. The barn is the first of its kind—a large-scale facility that produces exclusively heritage chickens and turkeys.

The 12,000-square-foot structure was built with a loan from Farm Forward, which was made possible by a generous grant from the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA). By doubling Good Shepherd’s production capacity, the barn allows Good Shepherd to fill orders for customers who would otherwise be forced to buy birds from factory farms. (This is the first project funded by Farm Forward’s Pay It Forward Loan Program. Stay tuned for an upcoming feature about this exciting new opportunity for high-welfare farmers!)

“Most poultry operations ask, at best, ‘How can I improve welfare while keeping my costs the same,’” explains Farm Forward CEO Aaron Gross. “Reese’s kind of farming starts with a level of animal welfare as a non-negotiable principle and asks, ‘How can we keep costs as low as possible while maintaining these high welfare standards?’ Farm Forward’s loan to Mr. Reese is helping to transform the industry by shifting market share from typical industrial farms to farms like Good Shepherd,” adds Gross.

The new barn embodies the three principles of Good Shepherd’s heritage farming philosophy: animal welfare, breed conservancy and biodiversity, and environmental stewardship.

Animal welfare

The barn was constructed with the comfort and health of its avian inhabitants as a top priority. Reese installed doors that open onto large ranges at regular intervals along one wall and provided larger walk-out doors at each end of the barn, allowing birds easy access to pasture year-round. A built-in roost spanning 200 feet gives the birds plenty of room to rest safely. A host of temperature controls automatically respond to conditions in the barn to ensure that it is never too hot, too cold, or too humid for the birds. In short, the new Good Shepherd barn exemplifies how modern agricultural technology can be employed to maximize the well-being of farmed animals.

Breed conservancy and biodiversity

As the poultry industry has moved away from heritage breeds in favor of hybrid birds to meet increasingly intensive production demands, conservation of heritage breeding lines has declined to the point that heritage poultry is in danger of disappearing completely. The preservation of diverse breeds is crucial to any future farm system for optimizing both animal health and animal welfare. In contrast to birds from hybrid breeding lines, the heritage breeds Reese raises, like Plymouth Rock chickens and Standard Bronze turkeys, are able to thrive on pasture, grow slowly, and mate naturally.

The new barn will help ensure the survival of heritage breeds by allowing Good Shepherd to function as a hatchery exclusively for heritage chicks and poults, saving a crucial and irreplaceable resource for promoting more humane and sustainable poultry farming. Currently, 99% of chicks sold to poultry farmers are hybrid birds from factory hatcheries, but farmers will soon be able to source heritage breeds from Good Shepherd.

Environmental stewardship

The barn is also designed to make maximum use of its surrounding space without depleting the land. Reese laid out the building so birds have access to three different pastures as they grow in size. Multiple pasture allows for easy movement of the birds and time for each pasture to re-charge between flocks. This method avoids the profound welfare problems associated with “tractor” systems that allow birds access to fresh pasture but continue to keep them confined in pens.

Reese and Good Shepherd Poultry Ranch have been featured in the New York Times, USA Today, ABC News, the Martha Stewart Show, and in the best-selling book Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. The new barn at Good Shepherd advances Reese’s work in heritage poultry by helping make his ranch a model that other farmers can follow.

Farm Forward supports the development of agricultural practices that can help reduce the number of animals on factory farms and improve farmed animal welfare. We hope you’ll join us in working toward the highest welfare, most sustainable and just alternatives to factory farming.

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Cattle raised for beef are the only farmed animals in America that typically spend a significant portion of their lives outdoors and free of intensive confinement. Although factory farming has devastated traditional cattle husbandry, the beef industry has resisted the factory farm model more than any other form of animal agriculture (including dairy production). Whereas pigs and poultry spend their entire lives in confinement, cattle raised for beef typically spend only half their lives in a factory farm setting—the feedlots that fatten them before slaughter. For the first half of their lives, cattle raised for beef are left relatively free to roam in pastures.

Small segments of the beef industry have even become national leaders in creating higher welfare, more sustainable animal agriculture. The small but growing market for pastured beef does away with the feedlot and allows cattle to live in a healthy environment and engage in many of their species-specific behaviors—a foundation of good welfare. Other progressive operations have reduced the amount of time animals spend in the feedlot and taken steps to mitigate the detrimental effects feedlots can have on animal welfare and the environment.

One such operation— Niman Ranch—has gone so far as to require all of the 300 ranchers participating in its cooperative to follow basic welfare practices recognized by leading animal protection groups. Although these practices are insufficient by Farm Forward’s standards (dehorning is prohibited, for example, but branding is still allowed), they represent an important step forward.

Despite such positive examples, the beef industry as a whole has been heading in the wrong direction. Today, it has become an international force promoting animal suffering, dependence on fossil fuels, pollution, and deforestation. Whether through reducing or eliminating beef consumption, or supporting higher welfare, more sustainable suppliers, consumers have a vital role to play in reducing the ongoing harms perpetrated by the beef industry.

Please join the Farm Forward mailing list to receive updates about our work 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.

What the Hummer is to fuel efficiency, poultry is to animal welfare. No food in the nation produces more suffering than poultry. Factory farming had its beginnings in the poultry industry in the 1920s, and no other industry has been so altered by its methods and logic.

To make matters worse, birds raised for meat have absolutely no protection under the law. The Humane Methods of Slaughter Act is the only piece of federal legislation that offers protection to farmed animals at slaughter, and chickens and turkeys are formally excluded from the law. As a result, while cows and pigs must be rendered unconscious before they are slaughtered, it’s legal—in fact it is the common practice—to paralyze birds and slaughter them while they are still conscious. This is true not only for factory farmed birds, but also for birds correctly labelled free range, organic, and even pasture raised.

It’s also perfectly legal to starve birds, cut off their sensitive beaks, and confine them for their entire lives in spaces so small they can never stretch their wings. And there are currently no laws in place to prevent corporations from genetically engineering birds any way they like—regardless of the cost to the animals’ wellbeing.

Today’s commercially available chickens, for example, are virtually all genetic hybrids.1 Most all of these birds grow three times as fast on a third of the feed when compared to heritage breeds. Imagine a child reaching adult size by age 7 while only eating lunch. The physiological effects of this rapid growth are devastating. The Defra-funded study2 of 51,000 chickens intensively bred specifically for their meat, found that at about 40 days old 27.6 percent exhibited “poor locomotion” with 3.3 percent of the chickens not being able to walk at all.

“Heritage” is the name give to the standard-bred chicken and turkey breeds that pre-date the rise of industrial agriculture. True heritage chickens will meet the American Poultry Association’s (APA) Standards of Perfection and have three main characteristics. Heritage chickens mate naturally; they live long, productive lives; and they grow at a normal rate.3 If a chicken product doesn’t come from a standard-bred chicken, odds are greater than 99 percent that the chicken grew at an accelerated growth rate that had catastrophic effects on the birds’ health. Even more disturbing is the genetic engineering of today’s turkeys, who can no longer fly, walk normally, or reproduce sexually.

The extreme modification of chickens’ genetics may be causing health problems not only in chickens, but in the people who eat them. Historically, chickens were relatively lean and contained more protein than fat, but a recent study4 suggest that they are now made up more of fat than protein. From 1870 to 2004 the fat content of commercially available chickens has increased 5-fold, while their protein content has shrunk by 25 percent.5

When it comes to poultry, anything goes.

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For good reasons, some people keep pigs as pets: When given the chance, pigs are capable of relating to human guardians with the same degree of loyalty, playfulness, and regard as any dog. In a natural, nonthreatening environment, pigs can learn and respond to their own names and be trained to do just about anything a dog can do. The producers of the movie Babe (where a pig learns to herd sheep) didn’t have to use CGI—they just taught the pigs how to do their own stunts.

Even studies funded by the agribusiness industry have shown that pigs are highly intelligent animals. Stanley Curtis, who is an industrial animal scientist at Penn State University, trained pigs to play a video game using their snouts to manipulate a joystick. Despite the physical difficulties of the task, the pigs were able to learn the game faster even than chimpanzees.1 Pigs have been observed not only figuring out how to open gates to escape from a pasture, but also working together in pairs to accomplish this task.2 One study showed that pigs can adjust thermostats to keep the temperature to their liking.3

Perhaps more striking even than these abilities themselves are the vast differences in behavior between pigs on factory farms and those who are raised in a more natural environment. Pigs who are not subjected to intensive confinement exhibit a complex level of social interaction that includes using body language to indicate when apparently aggressive gestures are instead part of a game,4 and using different grunts and calls to signify when it’s time to suckle and when they have become separated from their babies.5

When they are happy and have room to do so, pigs will bound, roll on their backs, and play chase—but the vast majority of pigs raised for food nowadays are kept in such cramped conditions that they cannot turn around, and barely have room to move. Anyone keeping a dog, or thousands of dogs, in similar conditions would be charged with animal abuse. It is time—decades ago, it was time—to end the factory farming of pigs.

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If you eat beef, we hope you’ll make a decision to reduce the amount and only purchase meat that comes from cattle who were treated according to publicly accessible and independently approved animal welfare standards.

That’s not as easy as it sounds. If you don’t deliberately seek out meat from ranchers who follow a higher standard of animal welfare, you can be certain that your meal came from an animal who was mistreated—though not quite as severely as chickens, pigs, and sea animals. Ranchers get a premium price for their animals when they follow good husbandry practices, so you can be sure that they will let you know when they do.

Unfortunately, the premium price that comes with high animal welfare standards has also encouraged a lot of deceptive labels. So how do you know what beef is best?

Creating alternatives to factory farming is a big job and one farmer can’t do it alone.

First, ignore any word on a label unless you are already familiar with its legal definition from a trusted source. Words like “free-range/roaming” and “natural” are poorly defined from a legal perspective and in no way indicate that meat came from animals raised in a high-welfare setting.

For basic welfare during the animal’s life, you want a “grass-fed” and “pasture-raised” animal—but these terms are poorly defined and without an independent certification it’s hard to know if the animals really spent their lives eating grass on pasture. It is even harder to tell if the animal was mutilated (castrated, dehorned, or branded) and how the animal was killed, as these inhumane practices have nothing to do with a cow being grass-fed or pasture-raised.

Perhaps the best way to ensure that your food came from animals who had both a higher welfare life and a better death is to buy your beef in bulk from a 100 percent grass-fed and pasture-raised beef ranch that you have personally visited and to personally arrange for the animal to be individually slaughtered. Farmers’ markets and food co-ops often foster these kinds of relationships. Abundant information on local, higher welfare farmers online is also available online. SustainableTable.org is a good place to start.

If a traditional supermarket or restaurant is your only option, the industry leaders—who don’t guarantee higher welfare animal products but do make finding them more likely—are Whole Foods among supermarkets and Chipotle among national restaurant chains. Beef with the American Grassfed Certified label indicates that the animals genuinely were pasture-raised and grass-fed (which those words alone do not guarantee). This certification, however, has important limitations such as the lack of regulations covering slaughter. Animal Welfare Approved and Global Animal Partnership Steps 4 through 5+ certifications also genuinely indicate significantly higher-than-average levels of welfare. Meats that carry the Certified Humane or Global Animal Partnership Steps 1 through 3 certifications come from animals who are raised by better-than-average methods, but their animal welfare standards are significantly weaker than steps 4 through 5+.

Whether you choose to reduce your meat consumption or support higher welfare farmers or both, we hope that you will join Farm Forward in our work to reduce the suffering of factory farmed animals.

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Our oceans are emptying at an alarming rate. Oceanographers monitoring the Marine Trophic Index—a measure of the stability of the ocean’s food chain—have discovered a disturbing trend over the past 50 years: Human consumption of marine animals has been drastically upsetting the balance of ocean life since the beginning of large-scale industrial fishing in the 1950s.

The culprit for this relatively sudden change in the ocean’s ecosystem is what University of British Columbia scientist Daniel Pauly describes as “fishing down the marine food webs.”1 After our overfishing of alpha-predators like tuna and salmon leads to their rapid dwindling, we begin eating lower down the ocean’s food chain. In the absence of their predators, species further down the chain experience a temporary population boom. Fishers respond to this newfound abundance by fishing them out of existence—and so on, down the food chain.

If this trend continues unabated, Pauly suggests, the future of seafood will be an unvarying supply of “jellyfish sandwiches.”2 An initially skeptical scientific community has confirmed Pauly’s fears, even going so far as to project an approximate date by which the world’s seafood supply will have run out based on the current rate of ocean fishing: as soon as 2050, according to the journal Science.3

Fish are not the only marine animals to suffer from aggressive commercial fishing practices. Techniques such as “bottom trawling” (in which nets are dragged thousands of miles across the ocean floor) indiscriminately destroy entire habitats of deep-sea species. Both bottom trawling and longlining (using large numbers of baited hooks on an extended line) devastate populations of dolphins, whales, sea turtles, seabirds, and other marine animals who are trapped in the nets or hooks as “bycatch.”

Unless we take immediate steps to dramatically reduce our consumption of sea life, the long-term damage to our oceans’ ecosystems may well be irreversible.

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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.

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It’s tempting to think that a rapid shift away from factory farming isn’t possible. It’s easy to believe that individual consumers don’t have the power to force the industry to raise standards for farmed animals. But third-generation poultry farmer David Pitman—the head of one of the largest high welfare poultry operations in the country—knows differently: “Farmers produce and change their practices based on consumer demand. And this change only takes as long as the consumer wants it to.”

David centers his business around a sense of responsibility for the welfare of the turkeys, chickens, ducks, and geese living on his farms. David’s story models a way forward, outside of the factory farm system.

Based in central California, Pitman Farms is one of the few non-industrial poultry operations to withstand the rapid industrialization of animal agriculture. David’s grandfather, Don Pitman, started the farm in 1954, raising American Poultry Association Standard-Bred birds—genetically similar to the heritage turkeys David raises today. Back then birds didn’t need antibiotics to thrive. But in the 70s and 80s, when concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) took over and consumers began to rely on cheaper meat, the Pitman family decided to adapt to this new market, fearing that they would otherwise be run out of business like millions of other farmers.

David remembers that time: “First there was the farm to think about—what was the best for us as a family and what was the most compassionate on the farm; and then there was the consumer and what they wanted to buy and eat.” For David’s family, meeting consumer demand required sacrificing hundreds of years of genetic integrity and animal welfare to raise industrial turkeys, whose bodies yielded more meat at a lower cost per pound.

But in the early 2000s, while attending a multi-stakeholder meeting with poultry farmers, customers, retailers, and animal advocates, it became clear to David that there was indeed a growing market for the high welfare animals that Pitman Farms had once raised.

Shortly after the meeting, David reinvented his business and once again began raising his animals to meet the highest welfare standards available. The family-owned Pitman Farms could make big changes in response to consumer demand more quickly than could larger, corporate-owned, less-agile producers. As David says, “We’re ready to make those changes the moment our customers show they’re willing to join us by paying for healthier, happier, and hardier birds.” Along with these big changes came a new label, “Mary’s,” after David’s mother. As David recalls, “Mom would not stand behind or support the family business until we kicked up our welfare and started doing what was best for the birds and for the health of those who bought them.”

Collaborating with Global Animal Partnership

As Pitman Farms raised its animal welfare standards, it needed a way to guarantee its conscientious practices to its customers. Enter Global Animal Partnership (GAP), whose 5-Step Animal Welfare Ratings Standards have become the largest welfare certification program in America. “Step 1” GAP certification indicates better welfare than the average factory farm, but still relatively low welfare. Products rated at “Step 5” represent the gold standard of welfare. By overhauling his operations, Pitman Farms was able to meet some of GAP’s highest standards, and now David is the first producer of any farmed animal to get a Step 5 certification! According to GAP’s Executive Director Miyun Park, “David Pitman is leading the way in promoting and putting into practice higher welfare farming. His heartfelt commitment to continuous improvement in agriculture is truly inspiring.”

What has been good for the animals also has been good for Pitman Farms’ bottom line: GAP certification increased sales of David’s birds more than 100 percent during the first 60 days. Farm Forward Founder and CEO Aaron Gross explains:

This is why Farm Forward has been an advocate of GAP and why we are proud to share several board members with them. Multi-tier animal welfare rating schemes like GAP’s are absolutely essential to progress in animal welfare precisely because they provide an easy path for producers to communicate to consumers about what the level of welfare they have achieved, rather than sloppily labeling animal products either as humane or inhumane.”

David’s concern for animal welfare also extends beyond his own farms; he is at the forefront of a growing group of progressive farmers who understand that animal health and welfare have as much to do with strong genetics as with farming practices. The philosophy behind today’s hybrid poultry maximizes genetic characteristics that improve profitability, like feed conversion (the rate at which livestock turn feed into flesh), but ignores the birds’ wellbeing. This approach to breeding has created birds whose genetics make them suffer more bone breaks1, have higher incidence of sickness2, and reproductive disease3—in sum, it has led to deformed, unhealthy birds. David himself came face to face with this problem a few years ago:

In 2004, we were raising alternative, modified-industrial breeds of chickens. One day I was showing my wife around one of the chicken houses. As I proudly talked on and on about how our farm was on the cutting edge of poultry, and how these birds were antibiotic-free, free-range, and organic, etc., she stood, with a tear in her eye, looking at one small chicken. Clearly unable to walk normally, the chick just hobbled awkwardly and then crashed to the ground, over and over. When she asked me why the chicken couldn’t stand despite all the ‘cutting edge’ advantages I mentioned, I explained that if people wanted cheap, boneless breast meat, that meant more breast and a lot less bone for the animal; if you have one thing you have to sacrifice another. It hit me then that we weren’t quite doing enough. We needed to concentrate welfare on better genes.”

Genetics Matter

Today Pitman Farms is the second-largest producer of heritage, Standard-Bred poultry in the country. David raises heritage turkeys, along with several other alternative breeds, and raises chickens whose genetic makeup is between typical industrial birds and the gold standard of heritage. He still raises some higher welfare industrial breeds—at least for now.

When asked about the future of his farms and heritage birds, he said: “I think more so than any time before, there is an increasing demand for alternatives to hybrid [industrial] birds, toward truly slow-growing heritage birds. Historically, as people have become more aware of animal welfare issues, and of the relationship between these issues and their health as a consumers, they sought change: first they wanted free range, then they wanted organic. Now, as customers recognize that there is more to welfare than how the birds are raised, they are going to demand birds like Heritage. We’ll be ready to meet that need.”

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Thanks to the growth of small, husbandry-based farms, an increasing number of farmed animals live better lives. But few of these same animals know a better death. Improving local slaughter is “the hard part,” which is why Farm Forward is providing support for a forthcoming documentary, Farm and Red Moon (formerly titled Abattoir Rising), directed by Audrey Kali, Ph.D. “The lack of slaughter facilities is the least-known, least-talked about challenge to a truly humane meat supply,” notes Kali.

On highest welfare, husbandry-based farms, the most stressful and painful part of animals’ lives is their journey to the slaughterhouse and subsequent slaughter. As Farm and Red Moon shows, the lack of local slaughter facilities forces local farmers to transport animals to distant industrial slaughterhouses that have little interest in animal welfare. In addition to the random, deliberate acts of cruelty consistently documented at such slaughterhouses,1 many facilities routinely deny animals access to food, water, rest, or veterinary care while they wait, sometimes for days.2 Even slaughterhouse workers who struggle to be humane often do so amidst inadequate equipment and with improper training.3 Stunning procedures regularly fail to render animals fully unconscious—a problem that in turn leads to the skinning, scalding, and dismembering of fully conscious animals.4 The Humane Slaughter Association explains, “When a captive-bolt enters the skull it causes massive damage and swelling around the wound; the swelling will absorb most of the impact of a second shot and this will mean the shock wave is not as effectively transmitted to the brain.”5

Typical meat labels like “natural,” “free roaming,” and “pastured” have no implications for slaughter. And while “small” and “local” can imply “better” and “more humane,” Kali points out that in the case of abattoirs, small can also mean not enough money for the right equipment6 or not enough personnel to efficiently kill the animals safely.7 Some animal welfare certifications can help. The Animal Welfare Approved certification has the highest comprehensive transport and slaughter standards. Beef and pork with a Certified Humane certification or purchased at Whole Foods Market, which has their own transport and slaughter auditing protocols, will usually be from animals that were slaughtered in better-than-average conditions. Unfortunately, this a small percentage of the meat supply.

According to Kali, four factors contribute to the systemic compromises in the well-being of animals during slaughter:

1. A lack of USDA regional infrastructure: An entire infrastructure of slaughter, processing, storage, and packing facilities is required to produce sellable meat.
2. The increase of USDA regulations: The USDA needs to revise their regulations to control for differences between large and small facilities.
3. Complicated state and local laws for slaughter: Small slaughterhouses do not share the same problems of disease and contamination with larger facilities, yet often face the same regulation.
4. A lack of training for slaughterers who have the will to respect the animals.

Beyond these pragmatic suggestions on how to improve the present situation, Kali’s documentary seeks to deepen our awareness of the unique individuality of each of the animals we choose to eat. “Every time people take a bite of a hamburger or chicken nuggets, I want them to understand that was a living animal,” explains Kali. Through Farm and Red Moon, Kali wants to “empower consumers with responsibility and knowledge that has been denied them since the consolidations prompted by industrial agriculture.” Kali echoes the words of the prominent animal advocate Gretchen Wyler: “We must not refuse with our eyes what they must endure with their bodies.”

Kali also challenges her audience to understand that slaughtering animals does not necessarily confer insensitivity to their suffering. While at the slaughter training facilities at the State University of New York College of Agriculture and Technology at Cobleskill.8 Kali was able to film the entire slaughter process—from stunning to dismemberment.

She also witnessed relationships form between animals and the workers. Though industrial slaughter often treats animals as mere objects, Kali’s experiences at Cobleskill make clear that recognizing animals as living individuals with personalities and capacity to suffer is essential to humane slaughter. To demonstrate this, Kali told us two stories:

Sonic the beef steer was raised by a caring family who really cherished his personality. They drove him to the slaughterhouse themselves and cried as they pulled away. His relationship with them made him totally at ease as he was touched and encouraged along by Kali and the respectful workers at the slaughterhouse. And after he was stunned, he didn’t feel a thing.

***

Number 70, on the other hand, like most of the 94 million cattle killed in the U.S. each year,9 was dropped off at the facility without a name, and his lack of contact with humans was evident as he stumbled around the facility, wide-eyed and terrified, not letting anyone near him. As acclaimed humane slaughter researcher and advocate Dr. Temple Grandin emphasizes, when an animal’s stress levels are high, their bodies release adrenaline and other chemicals designed to increase alertness, speed, and strength. These would make all the difference in a circumstance where extra alertness might help you escape with your life. But in the slaughter facilities, this stress makes animals resistant to the effects of stunning. Though number 70 was carefully stunned, he woke up in time to feel the knives.

With fierce moral honesty Kali tackles the complex ethical issues that surround producing meat from cows, pigs, turkeys, chickens and other animals. Engaging all positions—from farmers to slaughterhouse workers to animal activists—Kali shows that no matter where you stand on the issue of eating animals, the absence of local slaughterhouses makes life and death a lot harder for millions of animals. More importantly, she illuminates the way forward: “If we refuse to pay for or eat animals unless we know the circumstances of their slaughter, we will create a demand for local slaughterhouses and they will be built.”

Farm Forward is working to support Kali’s efforts. You can support this project by visiting her website, FarmAndRedMoon.com and also consider contributing to her Kickstarter campaign until Nov 18, 2015.

This summer, the world’s first restaurant serving only heritage poultry opened in Deposit, New York, a popular weekend destination among New Yorkers. It sells heritage meats produced by Good Shepherd Poultry Ranch and is already generating regional buzz. Butterfields’ opening is a milestone for proponents of humane, sustainable animal agriculture—and it all started with a simple phone call.

“I wanted to open a restaurant with healthy, humane menu options,” said Butterfield’s owner George Merich, “but I didn’t know where to start. I browsed the Internet and found a place called Good Shepherd Poultry Ranch. Its owner, Farm Forward board member Frank Reese, picked up when I called.” Merich grew up on a farm and is a self-described “animal-loving meat-eater;” but before talking with Reese he was only somewhat aware of the horrors of factory farming. “I learned so much from that first phone call,” Merich remembers, “especially about turkeys.”

Reese, a 46-year veteran farmer, has raised turkeys since he was a boy and is a leading expert on the history of American poultry. Reese explained what sets his Heritage Turkeys apart from the “broad-breasted White,” the industry’s bird of choice for mass production. Industrial turkeys are bred to grow at twice the rate of the turkeys of a generation ago.1 They are incapable of flying or mating naturally (the industry relies on artificial insemination) and are given antibiotics routinely. As a result the turkey products available in virtually all grocery stores and restaurants (including free-range and organic brands) are often from sick, injured, and even dying birds who suffered throughout their lives.

In contrast, Good Shepherd turkeys—bred continuously from flocks dating back to at least 1917— grow at a natural and healthy rate, reproduce on their own, enjoy a humane and spacious environment, and can even fly. They are called Heritage Turkeys because genetically they are the same hardy, healthy turkeys our grandparents and great-grandparents ate. The American Poultry Association designates them “Standard-Bred,” which means they meet the Standards of Perfection established in the late 1800s.2 These birds are never given antibiotics or other antimicrobials, and are meticulously cared for by Frank Reese and his network of compassionate farmers.

The results of such a system are extraordinary: leaner, more protein-rich poultry that has been featured on the Martha Stewart Show, earned praise from celebrity chefs like Mario Batali, and won top honors in several taste contests including one organized by the New York Times.

Once Merich understood what made Good Shepherd’s Heritage Poultry so different, he flew out to Kansas to visit Reese and see his operation. He helped Reese take his turkeys to pasture in the morning and herd them back in at night. The experience left a profound impression. As Merich put it, “When you actually hold a turkey and look into its eyes, it’s a whole new game.”

Now Merich is bringing the care, expertise, and unrivaled animal husbandry he experienced in Kansas to Deposit, New York.

Merich represents a new breed of entrepreneurship—one that insists both businesses and consumers alike should benefit from healthier, hardier, and more ethically raised birds. Heritage farm animals combine good business with highest welfare in the same success story. “What I love about working with farmers like Frank is not only that they are good people, but that they have a time-tested and humane business model that really works. I’m not just supporting one good farmer but preserving the legacy of the best of American farming.” True, entrepreneurs like Merich are preserving a part of American history, but their eyes are more on the future than the past: a future without factory farms.

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The recall of more than half a billion potentially deadly eggs in the Fall of 2010—enough eggs to make an omelet for every person in America—focused public attention on several unsafe and cruel practices within the egg industry. This recall, in addition to news of a historic agreement between the egg industry and welfare groups, means that legislators will be giving attention to the conditions of laying hens. With hen housing debates in full swing and the wellbeing of hundreds of millions of birds at stake, Farm Forward wants you to have the facts about how America’s egg supply is produced.

Hen Housing Today

Here’s a breakdown of all modern forms of housing for laying hens:

• Conventional battery cages: These cages are used to produce 95%1 of all eggs in America. Each hen is given roughly 67 sq. inches of cage space, less room than a single sheet of paper.2 The limited space and lack of enrichment in these cages does not allow for “species-specific” behaviors like nesting, which are crucial to basic welfare.3

Three additional categories of housing are employed on egg farms that provide the remaining 5% of our egg supply:

• Enriched cages: Though the standards are loosely defined, enriched cages are intended to provide features like perches, nest boxes, litter, scratching areas, and additional space.4
• Cage-free: Animals are kept in a barn or aviary setting with the birds generally housed on the floor.
• Free-range: These operations are similar to cage-free operations but claim to provide “access to the outdoors.” However, since “free-range” is not a term that is meaningfully regulated, consumers have virtually no way of knowing if the hens that laid their “free range” eggs are any better off than birds in cage-free systems.

The improvement of welfare in any of these three alternative factory farming systems is limited. As Farm Forward board member Jonathan Safran Foer explains in Eating Animals, “Cage-free . . . means no more or less than what it says—they are literally not in cages. [And] one can assume that most ‘free-range’ [and] ‘cage-free’ laying hens are debeaked, drugged, force molted, and cruelly slaughtered once ‘spent.’”5

The Debate: Enriched Cages Versus Cage-Free

There are two possible ways the industry is likely to proceed as it phases out its use of battery cages: battery cages will either be replaced with enriched cages or with cage-free operations. Segments of the poultry industry are presently favoring enhanced cages over cage-free systems.

Humane farming advocates—such as HSUS, The RSPCA, Compassion in World Farming and others—have argued that cage-free systems of one kind or another provide better welfare than enhanced cages. Farm Forward stands with these organizations, along with Nicholas Kristof, Wal-Mart, Costco and countless others urging industry to adopt cage-free production methods as part of a multifaceted approach to improving welfare standards for the millions of laying hens raised in the United States.

When combined with good management, enhanced cages and cage-free housing operations provide significant welfare advantages over battery cages, but no housing system can sufficiently improve the welfare of the Frankenstein breeds of laying hens currently used in the industry. The genetics and physiology of modern laying hens has been altered to maximize production at the expense of the animals’ wellbeing. Virtually all hens bred to lay eggs suffer from skeletal weakness related to osteoporosis.6 As a result, the risk of bone-fractures during laying is very high, especially in cage-free systems.7 Moreover, as long as poultry producers continue to use hens bred with disregard for basic welfare, the morbidity and mortality rates of laying hens in cage-free operations can be higher than in well-run systems that employ enhanced cages.8

In other words, cage-free systems may not be any more humane than enriched cage systems unless the genetics of the hens is taken into consideration. While it’s hard to imagine that any animal would be healthier if never allowed outside a cage, one can imagine disabilities that might make this so. Because of the profound genetic problems introduced in laying hens as they were bred for efficiency at the expense of welfare, virtually all laying hens today are disabled.

Clearly, talking about the cage or barn in which we raise laying hens is only half the picture of welfare. The other half is the genetic health of the animals. Farm Forward agrees with HSUS: “hens should be biologically sound and healthy, and able to move freely and without risk of injury, as they were before commercial breeding practices pushed them toward their biological limit. The solution to this problem should be pursued by science and industry in conjunction with the move toward cage-free systems.”9

Cage-free systems improve welfare for today’s breeds of hens but the industry is correct to note that so do enhanced cages. Farm Forward still favors a move towards cage-free operations over enhanced cages. We do so because as the poultry industry is pushed to return to more traditional genetics, the welfare possible in cage-free systems will far exceed the modest improvements in welfare possible in enhanced cages.

With your help, Farm Forward will continue to advocate for a more humane poultry industry that includes meaningful steps toward the reintroduction of high-welfare heritage genetics that allow birds to run, jump, and fly as they were meant to do. We hope you will join us.

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Update: August 4, 2016 –  Public Responsibility In Medicine and Research (PRIM&R) selected Farm Forward Board Member Bernard E. Rollin, PhD, for their Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Research Ethics 2016. Dr. Rollin is PRIM&R’s first Lifetime Achievement Award recipient from the animal care and use field. He brought applied ethics to veterinary medicine over 40 years ago and as a valued philosopher and educator his influence on veterinary ethics and human animal relationship remains unparalleled. This award honors the game-changing impact that Bernie’s work has had on animal agriculture in the U.S.

Original article: Anyone on the inside of efforts to improve farmed animal welfare and end factory farming will know the legendary work of Distinguished Professor and Farm Forward board member Bernard Rollin—arguably the single most influential reformer of animal agriculture alive today. Bernie is something of a force of nature, and the remarkable story of his life and accomplishments are now recorded in his memoir, released this week, Putting the Horse Before Descartes (available at major booksellers).

Picture an accomplished senior professor of philosophy with a list of publications as long as a novella, more than a thousand lectures in 30 countries under his belt, and a core conviction that our ethical obligations to animals should be based on a consideration of their telos—”allowing the animals to live their lives in a way that suits their biological natures … the pigness of the pig, the dogness of the dog—’fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly.’ … Social animals need to be with others of their kind.”1 Now picture another man: a swearing, weight-lifting, Harley-riding, self-proclaimed “gunslinger” known to respond to those who disrespect him by lifting them off the ground by the shirt collar and making gentle suggestions like: how about I “take you outside one at a time and kick your —–.”2 Now imagine that both men—philosopher and gunslinger—are one and the same: that’s Bernie.

Before Farm Forward was founded, Bernie had already changed the course of animal agriculture: he founded the field of veterinary ethics, taught the world’s first animal ethics course, wrote the first book on the ethics of genetically engineering animals, played a key role in the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production’s landmark report, Putting Meat on the Table, and conducted successful negotiations that led the State of Colorado to pass historic farm animal protection legislation. Many cruel procedures once common in veterinary and agricultural education and practice—like painful surgical training exercises on dogs and the face-branding of imported cattle—have ended through Bernie’s persuasive efforts. What is so remarkable about Bernie’s thirty-year record of victories for animals—especially farmed animals—is that he has accomplished these things without deep pockets or massive protests. Bernie is an organization of one. His primary weapon is an uncanny ability to make his audience—be they ranchers, academics, or politicians—remember what is in the end undeniable: no one wants to be the cause of animal suffering.

Putting the Horse Before Descartes captures Rollin at his best: a master storyteller who keeps you alert and keeps you laughing even as he engages serious ethical questions—questions like, “How can a city kid with a Ph.D. in philosophy have a conversation about animal ethics with a bunch of ranchers who aren’t interested?” In one of his classic stories, here is Bernie’s answer:

And so I walked in the first day [of my ethics course for veterinary students] with a prepared lecture on “the importance of ethics to the veterinarian” or some such schmucky title, attired in my suit, absurdly feeling like a Bar Mitzvah boy. As I entered the room, my worst fears materialized. In the back of the room, caps emblazoned with incomprehensible logos such as “King Ropes—Sheridan Wyoming” and “Dally Up” pulled over their eyes, feet up on the seats in front of them, chewing tobacco in their mouths, was a group of cowboys insolently grinning what I dubbed the “shit-kicker smirk” and wearing an expression that said to me, “Go ahead—teach me something.”

“Be cool,” I said to myself as I launched into my lecture, a resolve that lasted three minutes as they whispered and nudged one another with elbows. All the weeks of angst burst forth. “Hey, you shit kickers in the back: Get your damn feet on the floor, take off those hats, stop talking, and listen up. If I remember to speak in words of one syllable, you might learn something. And if you don’t wipe off those smirks, I’ll take you out in the hall and do it for you.” (Jesus, what did I say?) The effect was instantaneous: Twelve or so pairs of cowboy boots hit the floor at once; twelve hats came off; twelve smirks disappeared. “That’s better,” I said and coolly continued.3

Bernie’s ideas, especially his insight that the ancient and ongoing tradition of animal husbandry4 has historically contained a strong ethic of regard for animal life, an ethic that was destroyed in the transition to factory farming, have had considerable influence on Farm Forward’s philosophy and strategy. Decades before Farm Forward became the first food and farming advocacy organization to highlight the value of animal activists working with progressive ranchers, Bernie had identified the significant, incremental progress that could be made when animal protection advocates took seriously the concerns and wisdom of ranchers, especially those still imbued with the pre-factory farming values of traditional animal husbandry. As Bernie’s story about his first day teaching veterinary ethics above shows, building the bridges that allow for communication between largely urban animal protection and ecological activists, on the one hand, and those who work with farmed animals professionally, on the other, requires a creative approach. Such efforts, however, are likely to pay off over time. As Bernie emphasizes in lectures, “90 percent of the eight thousand or so western ranchers I have addressed believe that animals have rights.”5

It was also Bernie who articulated the “Principle of Conservation of Welfare” that animates Farm Forward’s focus on changing the genetics of today’s factory farmed animals as a means of improving animal welfare. This elegant principle simply states that “genetically engineered animals should be no worse off than the parent stock would be if they were not so engineered, and ideally should be better off.”6 The last fifty years of agriculture, especially in the poultry industry, have been such a disaster for animal welfare precisely because no such principle has guided the breeding of farmed animals.

If you have ever wondered whether one person can make a difference in the fight against factory farming, pick up a copy of Putting the Horse Before Descartes and you will realize what a life devoted to change can accomplish. All of us on the Farm Forward team have been inspired by Rollin’s thirty years of work on behalf of animals and we hope you will be too.

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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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Farm Forward is committed to a simple but revolutionary idea: We can live without factory farming. We can live without intensive confinement operations that devastate our natural resources and contribute more to climate change than any other industry on the planet.1 We can live without abusing animals, drugging them, genetically engineering them, and denying them the ability to engage in most of their natural behaviors. We can live without polluting our waterways, fouling our air, and emptying entire marine ecosystems of life.

The whole unwieldy apparatus of industrialized animal farming that has replaced the small family farmer and an evolving tradition of animal husbandry with factory workers in blighted rural communities. We can live, and live better, without factory farming.

Here’s how:

Changing farming

We can fundamentally change the way we raise animals

Right now, chickens and turkeys are given no legal protection from abuse, and more than 99 percent of poultry producers use intensive confinement techniques that take advantage of that legal void. But a small network of poultry farmers at Good Shepherd Ranch have combined traditional animal husbandry with modern technology to develop an innovative way of raising birds that is the highest welfare and most sustainable method existing today. Farm Forward is helping Good Shepherd Ranch become a progressive leader in the industry while passing its techniques on to a new generation of farmers.

Changing the story

We can reevaluate our understanding of farming

Now that the devastating effects of industrialized farming have been abundantly documented (by the United Nations,2 the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production,3 and a slew of animal protection and environmental nonprofit groups), we are joining the culture-makers pushing back against the industry. Farm Forward is working with scholars, writers, and religious leaders to raise awareness about the worst abuses in agribusiness and the best alternatives to factory farms. Bestselling novelist Jonathan Safran Foer and University of Colorado Distinguished Professor Bernard Rollin are two of the respected voices working closely with Farm Forward to help change the way our culture approaches farming.

Changing policy

We can work with corporations to increase transparency and encourage incremental steps toward the highest animal welfare and sustainability standards

Large companies are unwilling to make big changes in the way they do business on their own, but given the right incentives, corporations can learn to adapt in a way that makes sense for everyone. Farm Forward is working with other nonprofit organizations to help give fast food companies, supermarkets, and restaurant chains a reason to demand reform from producers. Through negotiations, undercover investigations, and public awareness campaigns, we have already seen important and far-reaching changes in the agribusiness industry. And we are just getting started.

Right now, we are at a crossroads. In the 10,000 years of animal agriculture history, the foolishness of factory farming amounts to little more than a short, depressing chapter. But if things continue the way they have been going, industrial animal farming’s effects may be irreversible. With our planet, our health, and our ethics at stake, the question is not whether we can live without factory farming, but how much longer can we afford to live with it.

Please join us in moving farming forward. Sign up for the Farm Forward mailing list to receive updates about our work and important information about how you can get involved.