animal welfare

Chinese officials in Shangdong Province have ratified the country’s first government-backed recommendations for how to slaughter chickens, says the New York Times. The guidelines, which were are not mandatory, are both an attempt to quell activists’ concerns and corner the export poultry market, which increasingly calls for more humane animal production.

No doubt about it, animal-welfare activists have made the fate of chickens a mainstream concern, says the Washington Post. “In the past two years, nearly 200 U.S. companies — including every major grocery and fast-food chain — that together buy half of the 7 billion eggs laid monthly have pledged to use only cage-free eggs by 2025,” the Post notes.

The organic food industry is feeling threatened by a new label on the shelf: “Non-GMO Project Verified.” Organic farmers and manufacturers told NPR that they’re afraid customers don’t realize that non-GMO foods can still be grown with conventional methods, including chemical sprays and synthetic fertilizers.

A dysfunctional and toothless state regulatory system “failed to protect rural communities” and the environment from pork producers that “repeatedly exploited weak Illinois laws to build and expand … massive” confinement facilities over the last 20 years, according to an investigation by the Chicago Tribune.

One result of the USDA's proposed livestock-welfare rule for organic farmers would be the eventual end of confinement-style egg production, because it says poultry must be given access to outdoor yards. A powerhouse group of 13 senators, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the leaders of the Agriculture Committee says the rule could affect egg prices at the grocery store and drive up costs for producers.

Paris-based Sodexo, one of the world's largest food-service suppliers, pledged to sell only cage-free eggs worldwide by 2025, reports the Washington Post, signaling that the movement “long championed by animal rights activists, is going more global.”

Publix, the country’s fifth-largest supermarket chain, became the last of the top 25 grocery companies to pledge to sell only cage-free eggs within the decade, reports the Orlando Sentinel.

In a new book, "The Humane Economy," Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States, says that in widely different industries, from agriculture and tourism to medicine and beauty products, consumers' purchasing power is prompting companies to improve their animal-welfare standards, says Civil Eats.

The Humane Society of the U.S. praised Perdue, the country’s fourth-largest poultry producer, for a series of animal-welfare reforms that it called “meaningful and precedent-setting.” The reforms include installing windows in poultry houses to allow more natural light; giving each bird more space; putting the birds to sleep before slaughter; and testing slower-growing breeds.

Large-scale hog farms typically put sows in metal cages for almost their entire lives in the name of efficient pork production. Pennsylvania producer Clemons Food Group is trying a different approach that reduces the time in "sow crates" to 75 days a year — not hog heaven but a step in the right direction, says Modern Farmer.

The upcoming Massachusetts referendum on animal welfare standards - requiring more space for poultry, pigs and calves - boils down to "a class thing," says the executive director of a group that is challenging the proposal in court.

For years, organic food has been the fastest-growing segment of U.S. agriculture, with a sales total of nearly $36 billion a year at latest count. "A deepening divide" is splitting the industry and "sparking litigation and allegations that the well-known label marking foods as organic no longer assures consumers that foods are free from chemicals and other materials, or that organic meat was raised naturally," says Huffington Post.

Dozens of food companies have pledged to switch to cage-free eggs over the next few years, including Walmart, the largest U.S. grocery retailer.

The supermarket chain Kroger says 15 percent of the eggs it sold in 2015 were cage-free. "As our customer base has been moving to cage-free at an increasing rate, Kroger’s goal is to transition to a 100% cage-free egg supply chain by 2025," the grocer said in an announcement.

Dunkin' Donuts joined fast-food companies McDonald's and Taco Bell in announcing a switch to cage-free eggs. Dunkin' said it will use only cage-free eggs in the United States by 2025 and will explore the feasibility of going cage-free in all its operations worldwide, said Reuters.

Produced by hens that spend their days outdoors, "pastured eggs" are a tiny part of the billions of eggs laid each year yet "are one of the fastest-growing category of eggs in America today," says the New York Times.