Farmed Animals
There’s an estimated 9 billion land animals raised and killed for food every year in the United States. Many of these animals are subjected to near-unimaginable cruelty — much of which is perfectly legal, under current law.
Despite their vast numbers, and severity of abuse they suffer, farmed animals receive only minimal protections by our legal system.
Farmed animals raised for the meat, dairy, and egg industries are among the most abused in the U.S. Investigations and industry whistleblowers have revealed abuses on farms and in slaughterhouses so horrific, most people cannot even bear to witness them.
Abuse takes place outside the law, but much of the cruelty consists of commonplace, standard industry practices, and in most states legally sanctioned.
There are an estimated 9 billion animals raised and killed for food every year.
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These common, cruel practices include:
- Animals can have their testicles, tails, horns, beaks, or toes removed without anesthesia.
- In most states, animals are intensively confined in spaces so small they cannot turn around, extend their wings, or lie down comfortably, as in gestation crates, veal crates, and battery cages.
- Hens are systematically starved in order to artificially restart their egg-laying cycles.
- Male chicks are ground up alive, and piglets are killed by slamming their heads on the ground.
- Calves can be taken away from their mothers, mere moments after birth, causing distress for both. Calves raised for veal are so severely confined they cannot turn around or stretch their limbs.
COVID-19 Response
While the spread of COVID-19 continues, we must also prepare for — with the intention to prevent — the next pandemic. The Animal Legal Defense Fund’s COVID-19 Response page contains white papers outlining policy recommendations, on-demand webinars related to COVID-19 and zoonotic diseases, legal education and financial resources for law students and law schools affected by the COVID-19 crisis, resources to support industrial animal agriculture whistleblowers, and more.
Foie Gras
Why is banning fois gras important?
Foie gras is a cruelly-produced, high-priced “gourmet” delicacy that comes from force-feeding young ducks (or geese) until their livers swell to eight or more times their natural size. Foie gras (French for “fat liver”) is the diseased liver of an animal who has suffered enormously. That’s why California’s 2004 ban (which went into effect in 2012) on the production and sale of foie gras was a momentous step forward.
Ag-Gag Laws
Why are Ag-Gag laws harmful?
The ability to investigate, document, and publicize corporate agriculture’s abuses is imperative both to the well-being of animals across the nation—and to our own health and safety. Factory farms want to keep their cruel practices hidden from the public, but the public deserves the truth about the billions of animals suffering on industrial farms and whether laws are being broken, jeopardizing food safety, workers’ rights, and environmental standards.
Cultivated Meat
Innovators in the United States and around the world will soon bring to market new and transformative products that have the ability to reshape animal agriculture as we know it. Consumers will be able to purchase meat and other animal-derived foods without supporting cruel, unsanitary, and unsafe factory farms and slaughterhouses. Cultured meat, also referred to as slaughter-free meat or cell-based meat, is animal meat produced from animals’ cells — without having to raise and kill living, feeling beings.
Plant-based Meat
Plants are the ultimate source of protein. Animals consume plants and water, and their bodies convert them into protein. By eating plant-based meats, humans bypass the unnecessary step of obtaining proteins processed through another animal’s body and obtain the nutrients directly. Plant-based meats also do not require warehousing and slaughtering animals — a process that is inefficient, cruel, and requires vastly more resources in terms of land and water than eating plants directly.
Factory Farm Biogas
The corporate animal agriculture industry’s latest scheme is an attempt to rebrand its harmful greenhouse gas emissions as a form of “green energy,” which the industry has termed “biogas” or “renewable natural gas.” Increasingly, state and federal government agencies are subsidizing factory farm gas projects with tax dollars and incentives. The Animal Legal Defense Fund is working to expose the danger of paying factory farms for their pollution.
No federal laws govern how farmed animals are raised and most state cruelty laws exempt standard agricultural practices.
The Animal Legal Defense Fund is working to change this. Farmed animals are every bit as capable of feeling pain, and pleasure, as the animals who live inside our homes with us. We are fighting for stronger laws to protect farmed animals, and better enforcement of those laws.
What You Can Do
Download Animal Legal Defense Fund’s Farmed Animals & The Law brochure and share with others!
As long as the law fails to meaningfully protect farmed animals, you can help reduce their suffering by adopting a plant-based diet.
Let lawmakers know that legal protections for all animals are important and that you want stronger legal protections for farmed animals enacted and enforced.
Sign the Animal Legal Defense Fund’s Animal Bill of Rights at animalbillofrights.org to let your federal legislators know that all animals deserve basic legal protections that prevent the very worst abuses.
Join the Animal Legal Defense Fund in our work to protect the lives and advance the interests of animals through the legal system. We file cutting-edge lawsuits to fight abuses at factory farms, we work with legislators to strengthen laws protecting farmed animals, we assist prosecutors handling cruelty cases, and we promote the growth of animal law in schools, offices, and courtrooms across the nation.
With your help, we can do even more to ensure all animals are protected by the law.
Donate to Protect Animals
Help animals win the legal protections they so desperately need and deserve, and ensure they have an advocate in courtrooms and legislatures across the country.