animal welfare
Petition asks for food stamps for pets
A 59-year-old man from Mississippi, Edward Johnston, has petitioned the USDA to let him use food stamps to buy kibble and pet treats, reports the Washington Post.
Video reveals animal abuse at Florida egg farm
An undercover video from the animal welfare group Animal Recovery Mission captured abusive conditions on a Florida egg farm. The farm is owned by Cal-Maine Foods, the country’s largest egg producer.
U.S. appeals court nixes Idaho ‘ag gag’ law against recording farm operations
In their rush to protect farmers from adverse publicity, Idaho legislators enacted an unconstitutional, “staggeringly overbroad” muzzle of free speech and investigative reporting, ruled U.S. appeals court judges in Seattle.
USDA says it will kill its welfare rule for livestock on organic farms
Eleven months into the Trump administration, the Agriculture Department decided it lacks statutory authority to implement the livestock welfare rules that is wrote for organic farmers, and will announce today that it is killing the regulation. Groups representing conventional agriculture cheered the decision, which was disclosed at the end of last week, while the organic industry and its allies in Congress said USDA disregarded public sentiment and "could damage a marketplace that is giving American farmers a profitable alternative."
Farm states sue Massachusetts over its livestock welfare law
Thirteen agricultural states filed suit in U.S. Supreme Court in hopes of overturning a Massachusetts law that effectively bans the sale of eggs, pork, and veal produced by farms that use “battery” cages for hens, sow crates in hog operations, and veal-calf stalls.
USDA delays, and may rewrite the rules of care for organic livestock
For the third time this year, the Agriculture Department is holding up a regulation that would give livestock on organic farms more elbow room than is common at conventional operations, and this time, it says, it may rewrite the rule, which already is a decade in the making. "We will see the department in court and are confident that we will prevail on this important issue for the organic sector," said the Organic Trade Association, which sued USDA two months ago for unlawful delay of the animal welfare regulation.
McDonald’s wants more humane treatment of chickens
McDonald’s will now require chicken suppliers, including Tyson and Cargill, to treat animals more humanely at slaughter. “Birds sold to the chain ... no longer will be shocked, shackled by the feet to conveyors and have their throats slit ...,” says The Los Angeles Times. “Such methods can leave chickens fully conscious when they are slaughtered.”
The next wave in animal welfare: Fish
Mercy for Animals, a U.S.-based animal welfare group, is launching a campaign to bring awareness to the plight of fish in industrial aquaculture. The groups key concerns include “too many fish routinely crammed into pens and tanks, fish being raised in dirty water, high disease and mortality rates,” writes Clare Leschin-Hoar in FERN’s latest story with NPR’s The Salt.
Iowa ‘ag gag’ law is challenged as unconstitutional
A coalition of consumer, free speech and animal rights groups filed suit in federal court in Des Moines to challenge the constitutionality of Iowa's "ag gag" law, enacted in 2012. Iowa is the No. 1 state for hog and egg production and the largest target yet by campaigners against state laws that criminalize undercover employment on farms and at packing plants.
Organic food industry sues USDA over slowdown of livestock welfare rules
In a challenge to the Trump administration's drive to erase Obama-era regulations, the organic food industry accused USDA of unlawfully delaying animal welfare rules that give livestock on organic farms more elbow room than allowed at conventional operations. Livestock groups and their allies in Congress have alternated between ridiculing the organic livestock rule and trying to scrap it.
Drive to overturn ‘ag gag’ laws heads to the Midwest
After courtroom victories in Utah and Idaho, "expect challenges in the Midwest to so-called 'ag gag' laws that criminalize certain forms of data collection and recording on farms and ranches," reports Harvest Public Media. University of Denver law professor Justin Marceau says, "Laws in states like Iowa and Kansas are crying out for a challenge at this point," adding that animal rights groups are preparing challenges in at least two states.
Activists seek to make all hens in California cage-free
Animal welfare activists, led by the Humane Society of the United States, have filed papers in California to introduce an initiative that would make all eggs cage-free in the state by 2022.
USDA mulls update of animal-welfare license rules; HSUS says data on mistreatment is hidden
The USDA is opening a 60-day comment period on potential updates to the license requirements for people who breed, sell, or exhibit animals for commercial purposes. At the same time, the Humane Society of the United States says the USDA’s new “search tool” for accessing animal-abuse records “is still virtually unusable.”
Twenty-nine states make it illegal for counties and cities to pass seed laws [UPDATE]
With little notice, more than two dozen state legislatures have passed “seed-preemption laws” designed to block counties and cities from adopting their own rules on the use of seeds, including bans on GMOs. Opponents say that there’s nothing more fundamental than a seed, and that now, in many parts of the country, decisions about what can be grown have been taken out of local control and put solely in the hands of the state. (No paywall)
Perdue gets high marks from activists on its chicken reforms
The 21-day-old chicken — white-feathered, dark-eyed, with a brush-cut of pale yellow bristles above its beak — climbed carefully up a ramp, teetered briefly at the top, then launched itself into space. It landed on another bird, flapped hard, and gave its accidental landing pad an apologetic peck. Then it wandered off into a crowd of more than 49,000 chickens just like it that were hopping into boxes, poking their beaks into straw bales, and settling in pools of sunlight for a snooze.
House appropriators open the door to horse slaughter
The long-running ban on horse slaughter in the United States, a rider on the annual USDA-FDA funding bill, would end on Sept. 30 under a vote by the House Appropriations Committee. Before clearing the bill for a floor vote, the committee refused, 27-25, to include the provision in the $145 billion funding bill for the fiscal year that begins on Oct. 1.
Federal judge overturns Utah ‘ag-gag’ law
Siding with animal-rights activists, U.S. district judge Robert Shelby ruled that Utah's so-called "ag gag" law is an unconstitutional violation of the right of free speech, said the Salt Lake Tribune. Legislators in a variety of states have pursued the laws, which prohibit surreptitious recording of farming practices, following graphic accounts of mistreatment of livestock.
Supreme Court won’t hear challenge to California egg law
The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a challenge to the landmark California law that says table eggs shipped into the state for sale must come from farms that give chickens enough room to stand, turn around, and fully extend their wings.