|
Dear Friends,
The so-called Save Our Bacon (SOB) Act (the former EATS Act) — an absurd name for legislation designed to repeal the states’ most important farm animal welfare laws — is attracting opposition from Democrats and Republicans in Congress. As it should. If you stand for animal welfare, democratic decision-making, safe food and water, and family farmers, there’s only one responsible stand: opposition to the SOB Act.
This radical and overreaching measure, led by Reps. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, and Glenn Thompson, R-Penn., would repeal the nation’s most important farm animal protection laws — notably Prop 12 in California and Question 3 in Massachusetts, which voters in those states approved in landslide elections. The measures stipulate that breeding sows in the pig industry, egg-laying hens, and veal calves be allowed to “stand up, lie down, turn around, and freely extend their limbs.”
Allowing animals to move is no far-reaching animal-rights manifesto. It’s common sense and common decency. Giving animals some space is an intuitive animal husbandry standard in place across 10,000 years since the inception of animal agriculture.
In contrast, post-World War II factory farms, including 30-story high-rise buildings jammed to the brim with pigs that the Chinese want to bring to America, are anything but traditional. They are demonstrably cruel and dangerous for the farm animal and for our communities, since they incubate dangerous zoonotic diseases and pollute our land, air, and water.
House Republicans Push Back
This week, 14 Republican lawmakers sent a letter to House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn Thompson urging him not to force H.R. 4673, the SOB Act, into the forthcoming Farm Bill. The effort was led by Reps. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., David Valadao, R-Calif., and Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., and joined by Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla., Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., Byron Donalds, R-Fla., Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., Tom Kean, R-N.J., Young Kim, R-Calif., Michael Lawler, R-N.Y., Nancy Mace, R-S.C., Chris Smith, R-N.J., and Jeff Van Drew, R-N.J.
The SOB Act “is a direct attack on America’s family farmers, states’ rights, and our food security,” wrote Rep. Luna, the lead author of the letter. “It hands Washington the power to override local control, while giving foreign adversaries like China an even tighter grip on our food supply. China already owns Smithfield Foods — and with it, nearly a quarter of America’s pork market. We cannot afford to let federal overreach put American agriculture in foreign hands. Congress must reject [it] and stand with U.S. farmers.” Rep. Luna’s home state of Florida was the first state in the nation to ban gestation crates, and it did so through a vote of the people.
A Giveaway to Foreign-Owned Factory Farms
No sector of American agriculture has a larger share of foreign control than the pig industry. Two companies — Smithfield Foods, owned by a Chinese company (WH Group) and indirectly controlled by that country’s authoritarian government, and JBS, based in Brazil — together control 40% of American domestic pig production.
The SOB Act would only strengthen the grip of such foreign-owned conglomerates while hurting the thousands of U.S. pig farmers who have already moved away from gestation crates and other factory-farm-style housing systems and invested in higher-welfare systems.
If Prop 12 and Question 3 are gutted, thousands of farmers who supply crate-free pork to more than 50 million American consumers in California and Massachusetts may face economic ruin. The major foreign-owned competitors will swamp these markets by relying on extreme confinement, cutting moral corners and disregarding concerns about animal welfare, zoonotic disease, and pollution.
The Courts Have Spoken, The People Have Spoken
Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy have released a detailed, science-based report that dismantles the arguments behind the SOB Act and its Senate companion. Our in-house scientists, including Jim Keen, DVM, Ph.D., Col. Thomas Pool, DVM, MPA, and Svetlana Feigin, Ph.D., document the measure’s many defects and expose it for what it is: a reckless attempt to make immobilizing pigs the only way to farm and to invite China to expand its footprint through its U.S.-based proxy, Smithfield Foods.
Last month, 32 Democratic and Independent senators sent a letter to Senate Agriculture Committee leaders opposing the SOB Act’s Senate companion, the misnamed Food Security and Farm Protection Act (S. 1326). We are working with House Democrats as well as Senate Republicans on similar letters from each of those groups inside Congress.
Please write to your lawmakers and tell them to oppose the “Save Our Bacon” (SOB) Act in the House and the “Food Security and Farm Protection” Act in the Senate.
|
