Research Reports

Dispelling the Myths of Farm Animal Welfare

For a summary booklet, The Facts About Farm Animal Welfare Standards, or for a full copy of Farm Sanctuary’s research report — Farm Animal Welfare: An Assessment of Product Labeling Claims, Industry Quality Assurance Guidelines and Third-Party Certification Standards please call 607-583-2225 or email info@farmsanctuary.org. In addition, the summary booklet can be downloaded here while the full report can be downloaded here.

In the past half century, animal agriculture in the U.S. has been taken over by corporations, turning family farms into factory farms. Industrialization has allowed agribusiness to profit by raising a large number of animals more quickly and for less money, but at what cost? Factory farms treat animals as production units, not sentient beings with complex social and behavioral needs. They operate on the principle that it is more cost effective to accept some loss in inventory than to spend money on treating animals humanely.

Factory farms commonly warehouse hundreds or thousands of animals indoors, often in small pens or cages, or outdoors in barren lots. Grazing in open pasture and outdoor access is now the exception rather than the rule. Today, more than 90% of egg-laying hens in the U.S. are confined for their entire lives to cages so small the birds can’t spread their wings. More than two-thirds of sows in the U.S. are confined for most of their lives to crates that prevent them from even turning around. Dairy cows may be tied indoors inside cement-floored stalls or confined outdoors to barren dirt lots with limited or no access to shade and shelter. Cattle are fattened up in feedlots, virtual cattle cities where up to 100,000 animals are crowded into pens, breathing in noxious fumes and standing or lying in waste. And slaughterhouses have cut costs by increasing production rates, killing at lightning speed up to 400 cows, 1,100 pigs, and 12,000 chickens every hour.

The growth of industrialized farming in the U.S. has been facilitated, in part, by the near total lack of government regulation of the care and treatment of farm animals. The Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, which requires that animals be rendered insensible to pain prior to slaughter, is the only major law affecting the handling of farm animals. The humane slaughter law excludes poultry, which comprise over 95% of farm animals who are slaughtered in the U.S. Animals used in food production are also excluded from the federal Animal Welfare Act, and about half of the state laws prohibiting animal cruelty and neglect exempt customary farming practices. Unlike the U.S., other industrialized countries have enacted a variety of laws to restrict cruel factory farming practices.

In an attempt to prevent laws from passing that would change factory farming’s economic models of production, industry trade organizations and producers have developed industry quality assurance schemes touting improved farm animal care and handling. Voluntary industry quality assurance programs are commonly cited by agribusiness during legislative deliberations and used to argue that it is not necessary to pass legislation to prevent cruel farming practices.

In light of these attempts to institute farm animal welfare standards, Farm Sanctuary has completed a new research report, Farm Animal Welfare: An Assessment of Product Labeling Claims, Industry Quality Assurance Guidelines and Third-Party Certification Standards. This Farm Sanctuary research report sorts through the confusion surrounding these programs, arming those interested in understanding these programs and educating others with the facts about farm animal welfare standards.

Although the setting of welfare standards for farm animals is still in its infancy in the U.S., the area is evolving rapidly. This Farm Sanctuary research report examines more than one dozen farm animal quality assurance schemes that have been developed. Animal agriculture quality assurance programs, retail food animal care auditing programs, and third-party organic and humane food certification programs are addressed. In addition, government-regulated food labeling and marketing claims are relevant to animal welfare in that the public can make assumptions about animal care and handling.

Key Findings in this report include:

• Animal industry quality assurance guidelines are inadequate; they codify inhumane farming systems, fail to prevent suffering and distress, and do not allow for the expression of normal animal behavior.
• Food labeling and marketing claims, like “grass fed” and “cage free,” are generally subjective and not verified. The regulations of the National Organic Program are vague, non-specific as to species, and inconsistently applied.
• Organic egg and dairy producers have been allowed to use loopholes to deprive animals of the opportunity to graze and forage in a natural setting.
• Various humane certification and labeling programs have been developed in response to growing popular concerns about the cruel treatment of farm animals, but their impact at improving animal welfare has been minimal. While some humane certification standards may disallow certain cruel practices, significant deficiencies exist in these as well.
• Specialty markets, like organic and “humane” foods, may help lessen animal suffering, but they affect only a very small percent, about 2%, of the billions of animals exploited for food each year in the U.S, and even animal derived foods produced according to a “humane” program are not likely to meet consumer expectations.

Farm Sanctuary’s research report, Farm Animal Welfare: An Assessment of Product Labeling Claims, Industry Quality Assurance Guidelines and Third-Party Certification Standards comes at a time when government, industry, food retailers, and others are holding meetings across the U.S. to develop and promote so-called “humane” standards. This thoroughly researched study is an important resource for consumers and others concerned about farm animal welfare.