Dear Editor,
Last month, the US House Agriculture Committee passed a Farm Bill that puts billions of vulnerable animals at further risk of cruelty and abuse. In the coming months, I hope Congress will course-correct and pass a final Farm Bill that better considers the welfare of our country’s animals.
Per the Humane Society of the United States:
The Farm Bill, a legislative package the US Congress approves every five years or so to govern agricultural and food programs, has the potential to instill animal welfare and sustainability into food practices for years to come. Instead, the 2024 Farm Bill just approved in the House Agriculture Committee would undo so much progress made for animal welfare, threaten public health and create a nightmare for countless animals.
Drafted under the leadership of House Agriculture Chair Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., the bill grants special favors to low-welfare pork producers, puppy millers and mink factory farmers. In a moment of great need for the country, Thompson has given a handout to some of the least reputable special-interest groups in American life.
We begin with Thompson’s language to nullify Proposition 12, considered the nation’s strongest law on farm animal welfare, and similar measures in other states. Proposition 12 is the groundbreaking ballot initiative that was voted into law by a wide margin and was later upheld by the US Supreme Court after the pork industry lobby filed legal challenges. Producers who built their profitable businesses on cruel gestation crates — metal cages so small the pigs can’t even turn around — don’t feel like following consumer and marketplace demand for more humane approaches. So, they went to Thompson for a hall pass dictated by the National Pork Producers Council. Rather than ensuring a healthier and more humane food supply, this version of the Farm Bill works against the will of voters and state legislatures.
In the months leading up to this moment, it has been stunning to observe Thompson’s utter disregard for the voices of family farmers, citizens and pork producers from around the nation. Those voices have included many from Pennsylvania, his home state, where the entire Democratic and Republican congressional delegations have either opposed or been silent on the need for a “fix” to Proposition 12 and laws like it. Whoever he’s representing, it’s not the people and responsible farmers of the Keystone State.
Of its several missteps, I am most concerned by the House bill’s inclusion of language that could wipe out existing laws that ban the extreme confinement of farmed animals, many of which were passed by ballot initiative and approved directly by voters. This is a dangerous overreach of federal authority that further disadvantages America’s independent farmers, consigns millions of animals to lifetimes of unfathomable suffering and ignores the will of millions of voters who chose to enact these commonsense measures. The House bill also missed vital opportunities to permanently ban horse slaughter and fortify protections for the roughly quarter of a million dogs languishing in puppy mills.
Our country’s animals deserve better. I implore my representative, Rep. Lieu as well as all the other California State Representatives, to vote against any version of the Farm Bill that contains language overturning state or federal animal welfare laws and to fight for a bill that includes the Save America’s Forgotten Equines Act and Goldie’s Act. These pieces of legislation are critical to defending equines, dogs and other animals against cruelty. As it stands, animals have so few protections in the world that we have created. Research has shown that animals are in fact, sentient beings. As such, they deserve dignity and a right to life. For the love of all that is holy — we treat murderers and rapists better than we treat the only truly innocent beings in this world. I beg of the readers to please take action and speak up for those who can’t speak for themselves.
Kat Bylska, Los Angeles
