Farm Bill Would Erase Decades of Meaningful Progress for Humane Treatment of Farm Animals

The chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, Rep. Glenn “GT” Thompson, R-Pa., has taken decisive action to unravel decades of meaningful progress to halt extreme and inhumane treatment of animals on factory farms.

He did this two short weeks ago, by tucking the EATS Act — animal welfare groups call it China’s EATS Act or the CHEATS Act — onto a single page in a 1,000-page Farm Bill that is next headed to the U.S. House of Representatives for a vote of all 435 members.

The CHEATS Act would erase California’s voter-approved Proposition 12 and other state laws that give minimum protections to farm animals, such as outlawing extreme confinement of pregnant sows, egg-laying hens, and calves raised for veal, giving them a modicum of room to move.

In addition to harming state laws, the Farm Bill as crafted by Thompson also does nothing meaningful to advance animal welfare policies at the federal level for horses, dogs, and roosters.

Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy are two nonprofit organizations among many that are now vigorously opposing the Farm Bill in its current form because it’s a giveaway to special interests, mainly the industrial and foreign-owned pork industry, and to factory farm dairies.

“The Farm Bill has been turned into a weapon to attack state laws for animals, including overturning California’s Proposition 12, which stopped extreme confinement of farm animals,” said Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action in Washington, D.C. and chief architect of Prop 12 and other farm animal protection measures nationwide.

There is some good news, however, animal welfare advocates point out, as the Farm Bill now faces a steep climb to prevail, because it has numerous controversial provisions within it, including the “CHEATS Act.” Dozens of Republicans and Democrats have already signaled their opposition.

Farm Bill Is a Giveaway to China, Even as Americans Demand Stricter Legal Protections for All Animals

The United States has been steadily moving away from factory farms with extreme confinement of animals, thanks to more humane and broadly supported state animal welfare laws.

With Prop 12 now in effect, the California Department of Food and Agriculture lists 1,350 agricultural producers and distributors complying with Prop 12, with most of them having intentionally made investments some years ago in anticipation of the ballot measure taking effect. The CHEATS Act would put these farmers at risk, rewarding the factory farms for ignoring proper animal care and trying to stack the system in their favor.

U.S. farmers nationwide have invested millions of dollars in adapting their business practices and working on more humane housing systems to sell pork in states with reasonable animal welfare standards. Many American pig farmers are working hard to keep pigs on the ground, on the soil, and in spaces that, at the very least, give them some room to move.

Today, 60 of the biggest names in American food retail — including McDonald’s, Safeway, Costco, Walmart, and Sodexo — have made public statements opposing gestation crates or stipulating that breeding sows should have basic opportunities to move.

These companies, especially McDonald’s, are starting to implement gestation-crate-free policies, and that will create new business opportunities for American farmers who increasingly oppose housing systems that immobilize animals.

“Our farm and other Texas family-owned farms and ranches have geared up our production to meet the new and exciting market demand for our products in California,” wrote Neil Dudley, a vice president of Pederson’s Farms in central Texas. “We often compete against foreign-owned (including China-owned) agribusiness corporations. California’s standards help farms like ours compete on a more level playing field against these foreign conglomerates.”

American Farmers’ Hard Work and Progress for Profitable Humane Standards Ignored in Thompson’s Farm Bill

Instead of supporting U.S. farmers, the current Farm Bill supports China with its cruel and novel model of inhumane, high-rise factory farms.

As America’s largest global competitor, the People’s Republic of China controls more than one-quarter (26 percent) of the U.S. pork supply through Smithfield Foods, which was acquired by a Chinese government-owned conglomerate in 2013.

The Shuanghui Group, now known as the WH Group, purchased Smithfield Foods for $4.72 billion. At the time, it was the largest-ever Chinese acquisition of an American company, making the WH Group, with 146,000 acres, a major American landowner.

Today, not a single board member of Smithfield Foods is a U.S. citizen. No major sector of American agriculture has anything approaching this level of foreign control. Add in the 14% market share for the Brazil-based JBS and you see that two of the biggest nations in the world control two-fifths of U.S. pig production.

Alongside its decision to gain such control of U.S. production, China was simultaneously intensifying hog farming at home, pioneering the high-rise hog factory farm. In Neixiang province, there are 21 ten-story and higher pig factory farms clustered together. In them, pigs are jammed shoulder to shoulder. Not one of these pigs will ever be warmed by the sun or have her nostrils filled with a cool breeze.

It’s important to understand that Smithfield Foods is the biggest and most important member of the National Pork Producers Council, which has lost 11 straight federal court cases challenging Prop 12 and related measures. In the key case in May last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that California had exercised proper authority in passing a law to restrict in-state sale of pork, eggs, and veal from extreme confinement operations, no matter where production occurs.

The ink wasn’t dry on the SCOTUS ruling when federal lawmakers from Kansas and Iowa introduced the CHEATS Act on behalf of NPPC. Not a single Democrat in either chamber of Congress has cosponsored the bill. Only 51 of the 267 Republicans in Congress (18%) are cosponsors of either the House or Senate measure (H.R. 4417 and S. 2019).

In contrast, more than 230 Democrats and Republicans in Congress (43%) are on the record against the CHEATS Act and its derivatives. There have been four major congressional letters opposing the legislation: a bipartisan letter with 171 House signers in August 2023, a bipartisan letter with 30 Senators just days later; a Republican letter with 16 House signers in October 2023; and a Republican letter with 10 House signers in March 2024.

In her letter, Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla, and nine other conservatives said they were “gravely concerned about infiltration of American pork production by foreign adversaries, principally the CCP [Chinese Communist Party].”

Thompson’s Farm Bill Throws Out Meaningful Animal Welfare Reforms with Broad Bipartisan Support

 Along with the CHEATS Act, The Farm Bill currently has failed to include these meaningful animal welfare reforms that have broad bipartisan Support, including:

•  The FIGHT Act (H.R. 2742) would strengthen the enforcement of laws in every state and territory against the barbaric, criminal enterprise of cockfighting and dogfighting and provide a hedge against dangerous avian diseases threatening America’s poultry industries. With nearly 120 bipartisan co-sponsors and more than 550 endorsements from law enforcement, commercial poultry, gaming, and animal welfare stakeholders, the FIGHT Act merits inclusion in the Farm Bill.
• The SAFE Act (H.R. 3475) would ban the slaughter of horses and other equines for human consumption. This bill codifies a longstanding U.S. ban on horse slaughter applied through a funding limitation put in place annually for more than 15 years.
• The Greyhound Protection Act (H.R. 3894) would stop gambling on live and simulcast greyhound racing. Even the company that owns the only two remaining greyhound tracks in the United States does not oppose this legislation.

Thompson’s Farm Bill Includes Provisions that are Strongly Opposed by Animal Welfare Groups, including:

• A provision to double down on the “milk mandate” in the National School Lunch Program, adding whole milk to skim- and low-fat milk in school lunches. The bill fails to offer plant-based milk options for kids, even though about half of the 30 million kids in the program are lactose intolerant. Nearly 50 percent of milk in school lunches is thrown away, tossing aside the sacrifices of cows crammed onto factory farms and producing unnaturally high and unhealthy yields of milk.

What Happens Next Will Be A Test of American Values and Sovereignty

The core message from Thompson’s action is that he and his supporters in the industrial and foreign-owned pork industry want no limits on how animals can be used or abused, and that factory farmers see nothing wrong with immobilizing breeding pigs for their entire lives in gestation crates and not allowing them to move an inch or ever see the light of day.

Let’s remember that in China, there are no animal welfare standards. No free or fair elections. No longstanding nonprofit advocacy focused on animal welfare.

And if there is any doubt that the CHEATS Act is anti-family farmer, as well as extreme in its ruthless designs for animals, let’s keep one simple question in mind: Could a family farmer ever afford to build a 20-story high-rise factory farm costing 1 billion dollars?

If there was ever a moment of clarity about the direction of American agriculture, this is it.

Do we want China’s EATS Act to deliver economic opportunity to our primary foreign adversary? Or do we want the homegrown Prop 12 and Question 3, which enshrine American values of basic humane treatment for the sentient creatures who remain at the center of animal agriculture?

Speak Up Tee By Tiny Rescue: Animal Collection

Related Content:

• The Eats Act Threatens Animal Welfare and Food Safety in the US
• Huge Win: Supreme Court Backs California’s Prop 12 Law Requiring More Space for Breeding Pigs
• Federal Court Upholds California’s Prop 12, A Landmark Animal Protection Law Governing Meat Production Standards
• New Farm Bill by Congress Could Bring Major Improvements to Animal Lives
• California Assemblymember Introduces Bill to Begin Moratorium on Factory Farms

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