Advocacy

Guest blog by Daisy Freund, Manager of the ASPCA’s Farm Animal Campaign

Did you know that more than 10 billion animals are raised for dairy, meat and eggs each year in the U.S.? Most of these animals are crammed together by the hundreds or thousands. Not only do these factory farms have poor or nonexistent animal welfare standards—but they’re also environmental nightmares.

Here are the top five ways factory farms are hurting the Earth:

• Animal agriculture generates 18% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, including 9% of carbon dioxide, 65% of nitrous oxide emissions and 37% of methane emissions. Most of that methane comes from belching cows and rotting manure.
• In the U.S., confined animals generate three times more raw waste than humans generate. Their manure is commonly stored in open-air “poop lagoons,” which release dangerous toxins such as hydrogen sulfide, ammonia and methane into the air and leach heavy metals, drugs and other additives given to the animals into the ground water. That’s just gross!
• The waste is often used as crop fertilizer and over-applied to nearby fields, resulting in further air pollution and high levels of phosphorus and nitrogen in the water supply. Excess nitrogen robs water of oxygen and destroys aquatic life.  
• Factory farms deplete our water by using large volumes for cleaning, cooling and drinking.
• The fossil fuels required to raise this staggering number of animals and produce their food emit 90 million tons of carbon dioxide worldwide every year. More than half of the world’s corn is fed to animals, and corn requires more nitrogen fertilizer than any other crop.

So what can you do to help? Check out our Top 10 Ways You Can Fight Factory Farming—and please share this post with your friends on social media using the hashtag #FactoryFarmsStink.

Across the country, we are seeing serious threats leveled at those who seek to expose animal abuse and food-safety concerns. The threats come in the form of anti-whistleblower legislation, dubbed “ag-gag” bills, introduced by big agribusiness under the guise of preventing animal cruelty. This disturbing trend reached California this year in the form of an ag-gag bill introduced by the California Cattlemen’s Association (yes, we’re serious).

The goal of this bill, A.B. 343, was to thwart investigations at factory farms, slaughterhouses and other agricultural facilities by requiring that evidence of abuse be turned over to law enforcement within a certain time frame. Fortunately, the ASPCA and a diverse coalition of opponents worked together to educate the Legislature about the dangers posed by this legislation, ultimately convincing sponsor Assemblyman Jim Patterson that he could not get enough support for his bill, causing him to withdraw it from consideration.

This is a major victory—as the nation’s top agricultural state, California is home to enormous dairy, egg, beef and poultry industries. A 2008 investigation of a dairy cow slaughter plant in Chino prompted the largest meat recall in U.S. history, identified fraud within the federal government’s school lunch program and resulted in criminal convictions for animal cruelty. A.B. 343 would have made it impossible to conduct the sort of thorough investigation in California that led to arrests and prosecutions in Chino. We applaud and thank our California Advocates and local humane groups for their support in fighting this bill!

Where does your state stand on anti-whistleblower legislation? Find out here, and be sure to join the ASPCA Advocacy Brigade so you can take action on current animal-related bills in your state!

Great news! Federal money for inspecting horse slaughter plants in the United States could soon be off the table, which would prevent the slaughter of horses for human consumption in the U.S. President Obama’s newly released FY 2014 budget proposal includes a request for Congress to block spending by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to inspect U.S. horse slaughter plants.

In 2005, a similar spending prohibition was passed by landslide, bipartisan votes in the House and Senate, shutting down horse slaughter operations in the U.S. However, it was not renewed in 2011, which created the potential for horse slaughter plants to reopen—at the expense of American taxpayers. Horse slaughter proponents wasted no time scouting locations: at least six applications to slaughter horses for human consumption have already been filed with the USDA.

“We are grateful to the White House and USDA for their leadership in ensuring that American horses are not slaughtered on our own soil for foreign demand, especially in light of the daily news from Europe about the horrors of discovering horse meat mixed with frozen lasagna and toxic chemicals in horse flesh sold for food,” says Nancy Perry, Senior Vice President of ASPCA Government Relations. “Wasting tax dollars on cruel and dangerous practices makes no sense, and we urge Congress to adopt this budget cut.”

Help us ensure that Capitol Hill hears the message to protect our horses, both here and abroad! The pro-slaughter industry will lobby intensely against this newest effort to prohibit federal dollars from being spent on horse slaughter, and our goal is to stop all American horses from experiencing the horrors of slaughter wherever it occurs, so we must continue to support the SAFE Act.

When the news broke that New Mexico could be weeks away from opening a horse slaughter plant, our hearts went out not only to the horses who would fall victim to gruesome deaths, but also to the citizens of New Mexico. If the plant opens, New Mexico’s reputation will be blackened by its association with the incredible cruelty inherent to this grisly industry—and its citizens will be burdened by the economic peril, decline in property values, chronic environmental hazards and awful stench that horse slaughter plants bring to communities.

There is a broad consensus in this nation that horses should not be slaughtered for human consumption—and New Mexico is no exception. A new statewide poll shows that 70% of New Mexico voters are opposed to the slaughter of U.S. horses for human consumption and do not want a horse slaughter plant in their community. This strong opposition is represented across political parties, ethnicities and locations within the state.

Take Action
Fortunately, we have a chance to stand up for horses and communities like Roswell, New Mexico, that would be plagued by the resumption of horse slaughter in the United States. The ASPCA works closely with federal legislators and other advocacy groups in support of the Safeguard American Food Exports (SAFE) Act, a federal bill to ban the slaughter of horses for human consumption in the U.S. and their export for that purpose abroad. Please visit the ASPCA Advocacy Center to urge your U.S. senators and representative to support and cosponsor the SAFE Act.