Agribusiness stakes hopes on getting EATS Act into the Farm Bill
WASHINGTON D.C.––From Capitol Hill corridors in Washington D.C. to the East London docks in South Africa and the fur farms of Finland, animal agribusiness is on the defensive lately as never before, and not just because the National Geographic web site on August 7, 2023 spotlighted vegan activist Wayne Hsiung in an article entitled “Activists call it rescue. Farms call it stealing. What is ‘open rescue’?”
“A new generation of animal welfare activists,” opened National Geographic author Rachel Fobar, “argue that U.S. state bystander laws give them the right to save animals in distress—including those in factory farms.”
Courts so far have not agreed, though juries in several states have proved reluctant to convict Hsiung and others when they have been charged in “open rescue” cases.
(See Acquittal of “open rescue” activists rattles factory farms from Utah to China.)
“Open rescue” scares Big Ag less than U.S. Supreme Court upholding Prop 12
“Open rescue,” in any event, appears to scare animal agribusiness much less, despite Hsiung’s upcoming Open Rescue Leadership Summit scheduled for August 12-13, 2023 in Berkeley, California, than the May 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding the constitutionality of California Proposition 12, approved by voters in 2018.
As summarized by the trade publication AgriPulse on August 2, 2023, Proposition 12 “bans the practice of confining sows used for producing pork that’s sold in California and also imposes regulations on producers of veal calves and eggs.
(See Supreme Court split verdict on California pig law sets up another round.)
EATS Act would undo state laws protecting animals, consumers, & even agriculture itself
Warned AgriPulse, “As Congress prepares to write a new farm bill, animal welfare advocates are preparing to safeguard Proposition 12 and similar laws regulating agricultural practices, while also pushing to tighten standards for dog breeders, ban the export of horses for slaughter, and eliminate the last vestiges of animal fighting and dog racing in the United States.
“A top priority for many in the movement,” AgriPulse told an audience of agribusiness insiders, is stopping the Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression [EATS] Act from being included in the farm bill. The EATS Act would forbid states from imposing ‘a standard or condition on the preharvest production of any agricultural products’ that goes beyond federal requirements or the regulations of the state where the food commodities are produced.’”
In other words, the EATS Act would undo all legislation in all states aimed at protecting animals, restricting pesticide residues on produce to protect consumers, and even a law in effect in California since 1920 that requires inspection of produce entering the state to avoid accidental imports of agricultural pests.
Pork barrel politics
“The 2018 Farm bill expires on September 30 2023,” Animal Wellness Action president Wayne Pacelle told ANIMALS 24-7, “and I think both the House and Senate committee leaders want to produce their proposed bills to the full committee in September or latest in October.
“The House chairman says he wants a bipartisan bill, but he’s pushing EATS,” Pacelle noted.
Counter to that, Pacelle said, “The pork trade groups concede that 2.5 million of the six million breeding sows [in the U.S.] are already in group housing and out of gestation crates,” as California and Massachusetts laws require, “yet California and Massachusetts represent just 10% of U.S. pork sales.
(Merritt Clifton collage)
McDonald’s, Costco, Walmart
“In short,” Pacelle summarized, “the narrative from the National Pork Producers Council that California is dictating to Iowa producers how to farm is a lie. The pig industry is already very diversified and has the capacity right now, without any additional construction or re-engineering of facilities, to accommodate all the demand.
“32% of U.S. pork is exported,” Pacelle continued, “to 122 countries for the last year we have data.”
Therefore, Pacelle said, “Iowa confinement farmers have nothing to worry about,” as regards losing the California and Massachusetts markets.
“They do have something to worry about when McDonald’s, Costco, Walmart, and other companies say they want gestation-crate-free pork,” Pacelle concluded, because those companies sell pork products throughout the U.S., as well as worldwide.
Sheep & cattle shippers “target South Africa”
While how pigs are treated is currently the hot-button issue for agribusiness in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, the hot-button issue in Africa and the Middle East is the treatment of sheep and cattle, especially sheep and cattle raised elsewhere for export to the Middle East.
Tighter regulations governing livestock shipment from Australia and New Zealand have in recent years meant that the transport companies serving Middle East demand “have targeted South Africa with its poor economic status and weak regulatory environment,” South African National SPCA chief inspector Nazareth Appalsamy explained recently to Daily Maverick writer Don Pinnock.
Those companies, Appalsamy charged, are “transporting animals north at the hottest time of year,” at risk of “high mortalities.”
National SPCA battles Al Mawashi
Narrated Pinnock, “In 2021, the National SPCA obtained an interim court interdict under the Animals Protection Act to prohibit Al Mawashi,” a leading livestock transport firm based in Kuwait, “from loading live sheep onto its vessels in East London, saying that live export by sea was completely unacceptable and unnecessary.
“The interdict was overturned by the [South African] Supreme Court and Al Mawashi proceeded with the shipment.
“In 2022,” Pinnnock continued, “the National SPCA, together with Humane Society International/Africa,” a subsdiary of the Humane Society of the U.S., “succeeded in stopping the proposed shipment of between 55,000 and 85,000 live sheep to Kuwait, claiming that 21 days at sea in baking heat constituted animal cruelty.”
Dehorning with an angle grinder
However, Pinnock learned, “Al Mawashi, using old converted ships not suitable for animal transport, shipped 56,002 animals out of [South Africa] in 2019, 108,923 in 2020, and 57,838 in 2021. It is not known how many survived these journeys.”
Among the few regulations that South Africa enforces governing livestock exports is a requirement that animals with horns that are “sharp or protrude beyond the widest part of the animal” may not be exported, Pinnock explained on August 7, 2023.
“Therefore,” Pinnock revealed, “A feedlot manager in Berlin (Ntabozuko) near East London, working for the Kuwaiti company Al Mawashi, decided to solve the problem by cutting off the horns of 126 rams with an angle grinder after National SPCA inspectors left, painfully exposing nerves, blood vessels and soft tissue.
“Blood flowing out of the feedlot”
“The next morning, National SPCA chief inspector Appalsamy found blood flowing out of the feedlot and rams’ coats bloodied from the wounds.
“Appalsamy called the police who arrested the manager,” Pinnock wrote. “His actions were flagged as a violation of the Animals Protection Act, which deems it an offense to cruelly torture or maim any animal.
“The rams were part of a shipment to Kuwait on a converted car carrier, the aging Al Messilah,” built in 1980. “They were confiscated by the National SPCA and moved to a place of safety where they were provided with veterinary treatment. The animals will be securely housed pending the outcome of the investigation. The date of the court case against the manager has not yet been set,” Pinnock recounted.
Hot pursuit
“We found a 50-pound bag of horns which we wanted to seize as evidence,” Appalsamy told Pinnock. “But the Al Mawashi guys loaded it onto a truck and sped off. We gave chase and retrieved it.
“We had the feedlot manager arrested for defeating the ends of justice, contempt of court for ignoring our warrant, and animal cruelty,” Appalsamy said. “He was charged but is not in custody, unfortunately.”
Noted Pinnock, “Following the crude dehorning, the animals would not anyhow have been allowed to be shipped,” because animals with unhealed wounds are ineligible for export.
“After the rams were confiscated,” Pinnock finished, “Al Mawashi continued with the loading of 39,000 sheep, 300 cattle and 43 goats on to the Al Messilah.”
Chicken losses to heat come to light a year later
Livestock mortality due to extreme summer heat, an issue raised by Appalsamy, also drew attention in the United Kingdom, after the periodical Carbon Brief disclosed the deaths of “almost 10,000 chickens” due to heat stress during “a single journey to a slaughterhouse” in July 2022.
“Between June and August 2022, 18,500 chickens died in transport, compared to 325 in the same period the previous year,” Carbon Brief said.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Brian May rocks U.K. badger culling
Former Queen guitarist Brian May, who became a leading astrophysicist after his rock-and-roll career, and a prominent animal advocate, on the same day “took to social media to shed light on a new documentary he’s making about British farming and the badger cull,” reported Alex Davies of GBNews.
The British Department of Food, Environment, & Rural Affairs has been culling badgers from the vicinity of dairy farms for decades in the belief that badgers spread bovine tuberculosis.
But one need not be a public opinion pollster to discover that May is far more popular in Britain than the badger killing policy.
“May has lambasted the government’s current guidelines on dealing with the disease and the culling of badgers which has ensued as a preventative measure,” Davies wrote.
Currently May is investigating “whether or not killing badgers does effectively reduce the spread of bovine TB in cattle,” Davies said.
(See British feds to cull badgers, ignoring lessons of 1,000 years.)
Finland culls 50,000 farmed mink & foxes
Disease––first COVID-19 and now the H5N1 avian influenza––is meanwhile driving what may be the final collapse of fur farming, after 35 years of diminishing sales and profits attributable chiefly to animal advocacy.
Finland and Norway, among the last western European nations with fur farms after extensive culling in response to discoveries of COVID-19 in ranched mink, “are facing record outbreaks of the H5N1 virus strain this year,” Reuters reported on August 1, 2023.
“The virus has killed thousands of seagulls and other bird species, put livestock at risk and restricted travel in some areas,” Reuters summarized.
H5N1 outbreaks prompted the Finnish food authority to order that 50,000 farmed mink and foxes to be culled at three fur farms, among 20 discovered to be harboring H5N1.
New York judge upholds NYC foie gras ban
Meanwhile back in the U.S., also scaring agribusiness, the New York City-based organization Voters for Animal Rights on August 3, 2023 reported that acting New York State Supreme Court Justice Richard Platkin “has decided that the New York State Department of Agriculture & Markets acted arbitrarily and capriciously in trying to override New York City’s foie gras ban,” supposed to have taken effect in 2022 but delayed by litigation from foie gras producers and restauranteurs.
“This means that NYC’s foie gras ban can once again move forward,” Voters for Animal Rights explained.
“While the judge’s ruling is a win, it does leave the door open for future challenges, Voters For Animal Rights said, pledging to “keep up the effort to defend NYC’s right to create humane laws and fight for the ducks and geese who suffer in the name of foie gras.”
Legal Impact for Chickens warns Rural King
The 135-store Rural King chain, of Mattoon, Illinois, on August 7, 2023 became the latest agribusiness target of animal advocacy, served by a cease-and-desist letter from the California-based organization Legal Impact for Chickens “alleging that it violates West Virginia’s cruelty law by neglecting the chicks it sells in its stores,” Legal Impact for Chickens spokesperson Sarah Gold emailed to ANIMALS 24-7.
“The allegations are based on multiple complaints from members of the public,” Gold said. “The letter demands that Rural King cease neglecting chicks and demands that it comply with the law.”
West Virginia, in the Appalachian hills, may be a difficult state to win an animal advocacy case in; but much of West Virginia is within a 90-minute drive of Washington D.C., close enough to keep animal agribusiness lobbyists looking over their shoulders.
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“claiming that 21 days at sea in baking heat constituted animal cruelty.”
It irrefutably is animal cruelty!
“cutting off the horns of 126 rams with an angle grinder … painfully exposing nerves, blood vessels and soft tissue.”
Monstrous.
“The rams were part of a shipment to Kuwait on a converted car carrier”
The slave trade is alive and killing.
Maddening, frustrating and diabolically hypocritical, since almost all major ideologies prohibit cruelty to animals and state this quite unequivocally; and many if not most of the most self-proclaimed pious adherents of these ideologies are the worst offenders.
Sharing with gratitude.
These poor creatures don’t stand a chance among mainstream society. They need our voices and our collective efforts to help improve their lot. If we can’t save them altogether, the least we can do is alleviate as much of their suffering as possible.