For decades, industrial animal agriculture has benefited from a hands-off approach in nearly every area of the law, at every level of government.

States protect Corporations not Animals 🐄

  1. multinational corporations that operate factory farms are given more protection than virtually anyone else. They are shielded from civil liability by state right-to-farm laws and from criminal liability by exemptions in most state cruelty laws.
  1. There is not a single federal law governing the on-farm treatment of animals raised for food. ❗
  2. Indeed, the federal Animal Welfare Act, which provides minimum protections for animals exploited for other purposes, such as experimentation, entertainment, and the pet trade, specifically excludes farmed animals from the very definition of “animal.” ❗
  3. And while mammals used for food have at least some minimal—though poorly enforced—legal protections at slaughter and during transport, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the federal agency Congress tasked with enforcing these protections, has refused to apply them to chickens and other birds, who comprise the vast majority of land animals used for food—to say nothing of aquatic animals.