In a bold response to the atrocities of factory farming, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), who are both vegan, have presented new legislation attempting to cripple the factory farm industry, halting it completely by 2040.
If passed, the Farm System Reform Act of 2019 immediately restricts the construction of new factory farms, also known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). It also places limitations on the number of animals each farm could potentially house, stops preexisting CAFOs from expanding, and allocates $100 billion over the course of 10 years to purchase factory farms, encouraging a shift to more sustainable and environmentally-friendly farming practices.
CAFOs provide the majority of the meat and poultry sold in the United States, which inhibits the growth of small farms and prioritizes scale and profit over animal welfare. According to the Sentience Institute, factory farms represent 70.4% of cows, 98.3% of pigs, 99.8% of turkeys, 99.9% of chickens farmed for meat, and 98.2% of chickens used for eggs.
The abuse and cruelty that factory farm animals face is heartbreaking. Cows, pigs, chickens, and other animals are forced to live in small cages separated from their families, mutilated and abused for the factories’ convenience, and ultimately slaughtered for human consumption.
Cows on dairy farms are forcibly impregnated and separated from their newborn children. When old enough, the young females are forced into the same slavery their mothers endure. The male calves are slaughtered for veal or beef at just a few months old. Male chicks are frequently ground alive just after birth because they don’t produce eggs and are of “no use” to factory farms.
Additionally, factory farm workers face various threats to their health. Exposure to antibiotics and manure puts them at risk of respiratory disease and E. coli. They are also frequently injured via dangerous chemical substances, which enter our soil and atmosphere, exacerbating our global warming crisis.
These are only a few examples of the awful conditions that animals and workers must withstand, and this bill would be an important step toward preventing such inhumane practices. Please, encourage your representatives to support the Farm System Reform Act.
While it is encouraging that our government is paying attention to barbaric farming practices, and we applaud these officials for taking action against CAFOs, a bill alone will not put an end to the inhumane treatment of farm animals. Choosing vegan, or plant-based, foods over animal products is the only way to guarantee sustained animal welfare and protect our precious planet.
What’s New…
20 years is a long time!
Why does it take 20 years? It needs to stop now! This is a disgusting and barbaric practice and America should hang there head in shame for treating animals with such cruelty and disrespect you would think that we are a third world country. We are not starving that we should inflict this kind of pain and suffering on innocent, helpless animals so we can eat. If no one ever ate another piece of meat and had a plant based diet, there would be a lot less disease.
Yes please stop factory farming. It is evil and cruel.
I am so glad that in the future this horrible treatment of farm animals will stop.
I also try to support Mercy for animals . It is really heart breaking to see how cruel the workers are to the animals. The dairy cows and the pigs suffer from birth to death. I just wish it could be sooner then 2040.
Have you done any research into what almond farms are doing to bees? The conservative estimate is almond farms are killing more bees than all the animals slaughtered in the US each year. This is why I said that all factory farms are bad. Raising produce this way harms animals just as much as raising animals harms them.
We need to return to small, diversified, and local farming across the nation. That is going to mean working to end the laws, the red tape, and the expensive fees that those factory farms lobbied for and got enacted that shut family farms down.
It is also going to mean a concerted effort to not bash people for what they eat and stick to the facts instead of propaganda. Small farms do not abuse or endanger their animals. Their costs are high because they don’t get the discounts the large ones do, nor do they get any breaks on tags and other requirements like the large ones do.
Always follow the money and you’ll find the problem/s with any issue. Check out how many of those large factory farms lobby for and donate to causes you think are good ones. It is shocking, heartbreaking, and a huge awakening when you find out where that money goes.
All factory farms are bad, including those that grow produce. If you want to be in harmony with nature then open your eyes and learn that mother nature mixes many plants, many animals, many birds, insects, etc. all together. Mother nature doesn’t function when one or more are removed. In addition, the processing and shipping related to any type of food, including fake meat and out of season produce does just as much harm, and wastefully kills as many animals as eating meat does.
Faux fur and other like items are plastic and have to be replaced just about every year because they wear out. Then they end up in landfills causing harm to wildlife. Real fur is renewable and decomposes naturally without causing harm to wildlife. Sustainably raised animals, eating grass and other natural foods, in conjunction with gardening and orchards sustain the earth, the air, and the water.
It wasn’t until the cities grew so large that CAFOs became the norm. Cities themselves are horribly unsustainable and if they were banned, CAFOs would naturally go away. Before you advocate ending your food supply in favor of frankenfood and chemical cocktails, you should study and learn what the real problems are, and what drives them. Just chanting slogans is never the answer. The world flourished and prospered with small family farms, people eating locally grown and in season produce, canning and storing their own food for winter months, and not depending on foods shipped in out of season. What you are advocating, based on your diet preferences, is just as harmful as CAFOs; for the Earth as well as people and animals.
Good news!
Shut down factory farming !!!
Good news!
Shut down factory farming !!!
What a good idea to close down all factory farms, I hate what is done to farm animals why are they so cruel???
To hurt animals or human animals hurts the spirit and essence of this planet.
End of factory farming is critically important for the well being of animals.
All factory farms should be closed immediately. They also contribute to climate change. We need to boycott meat.
20 years is too long to end factory farms! It needs to end now and we the people need to push harder and more aggressively to make the changes. The animals are counting on humans to be their voice. Stop the murdering and abuse of these helpless animals
Didn’t President Trump recently announce he planned to lift speed limits in pork slaughter houses? It would be wonderful to see an end to factory farming, but alas seeing this bill pass looks bleak unless the public campaigns hard for this. Let’s all work diligently to help this bill pass.
This is wonderful news and even though it will take 20 years it is good as less animals will have to endure such horrible treatment.
This is good news, cruelty needs to STOP!
It should be phased out now, we need to address the huge problem of climate change, diseases in people as a result of eating meat and the untold cruelty involved in meat production.
It’s a part of how we live, if we don’t have farming what do we have?
A healthy planet and healthy people.
For one thing, there are too many of us and we should stop reproducing mindlessly. Second, there are alternatives to eating meat. None of our ancestors were morbidly obese like most of us are..Just look at some pictures of just a century ago, where people might have eaten meat once a week.
we cant wait till 2040 we need to try to end them now and turn it around, your prolonging their suffering and that aint right for the animals that is more torture and it pains them and animal lovers out there. you want to be acknowledge for a good deed start by ending the factory now.
Could not but agree more! My exact same sentiments!
This Bill is So needed and MUST BE SUPPORTED. We have evolved and new awareness must prevail. The best way for our future, better health and our ailing environment is this BILL> PLEASE Support it and join us in this quest. WE NEED YOUR SUPPPORT!! Let’s move into the BEST future we can have together!! Many Thanks!!~
Why does everything have to take so LONG to happen?! I’m sad for the billions of innocent beings that will be horrifically tortured and murdered in the next 20 years!!! GO VEGAN NOW and save their lives!!! And your own.
I have boycotted meat ages ago and at the age of 73, I have never felt so healthy. We are a nation of morbidly obese people and we are paying for those who are. Stop the factories NOW, not in 2040.
It will be a very good start.Let us pray it passes.
Let’s not wait until 2040, let’s do it NOW.
Why will it take 20 years to end factory farming?
WE MUST CREATE HARMONY IN THIS WORLD BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE !! WHILE THERE’S CRUELTY IN IT WE CAN NEVER BE IN HARMONY WITH NATURE !
20 Years from Now is Not Soon Enough for the Immense Suffering Billions of Animals Are Subjected To… Let’s End Hell on Earth Now!!!
Factory farming needs to end now not in 20 years time!!
Factory farms abuse animals and treat them like objects. I hope animals can have a good life with family/kids being together and walk in the sunlight. We need no Chem trails which are blocking the sunlight and filling the air with Aluminum. I can’t eat meat…think of the suffering and it clogs my blood vessels. Animals are hurt with antibiotics/drugs/hormones being inside. I Hope they ban those too. Factory farms started from the idea from China? We don’t need more meat/drugs in food. We need animals to be fed organic and ourselves. GMO corn/GMO soy with Roundup is not good food for animals. They need organic. We can feed the world with organic and animals being outside/having a good life. God bless the animals.
This is the right direction!! Keep going!!
too slow – stop it now – find a way
This is wonderful news .To bad it is such a long time away.. The animals will suffer 20 more years.
But thanks so much for all you did to stop this horrible way of life for the poor animals.
My exact same sentiments. Stop it NOW. We are a nation of morbidly obese people including the idiot in the White House. Consuming the flesh of tormented being is most unhealthy. I quit meat years ago and feel so much healthier at the age of 73.
No more Factory farms for chickens, pigs, cows, calves… give them space to move freely, depending on the size and number of animals, it doesn’t have to be acres of land but not exclusively in sheds, barns and prefabricated holding pens. One doesn’t have to be a vegan to treat animals well as they give birth, grow and eventully die, though not cruelly, mercilessly, with care and concern for their last moments.
end factory farming
It is why I buy grass fed beef and free range chickens, but most families can’t afford the higher prices. There has to be an in between to end this practice. Limit size of the farms, land to animal ratio, cycle animals from lot to lot just like we do crops! Vegan has its own problems brain damage to infants, and sure adult brains are affected too; then high carbohydrates result in diabetes, it has a whole set of problems with strict diets that limit food choices. There is a solution, but this practice is deplorable for the animals, no living being should be subjected to walking in their own poop all day.
Why 2040? Why not now??
This is such good news – now lets see the Trump senate dismiss it outright! He will stop at nothing for profit.
Too bloody late! It should be done immediately!
Thank heavens!!! The sooner the better!
BRAVO!!!!!!!
THE GALARNEAU & ANDERSON FAMILY
Oh I was so excited to read this idea of a law banning factory farms!!! Animals deserve our utmost protection and humane treatment. It simply is a constant sadness knowing what so many animals have endured on these farms! Please, everyone vote for those wanting to protect and care for animals!
I am DO ECSTATIC ABOUT FACTORY FARMING BEING DONE AWAY WITH. FACTORY FARMING HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH FARMING WHATSOEVER!! IMO FACTORY FARMING US JUST ANOTHER FORM A ANIMAL TORTURE, ABUSE&CRUELTY! 🙁
I for one am so thankful that this horrible farming for our animals will stop.
It is just a nightmare to read what the animals have to endure.
My heart has really gone out for the dairy cows and the pigs .
Such suffering from birth to death is beyond horrible.
So sad it will take so long but better then never.
Thanks to all of you that are trying to help the suffering of animals.
It’s hard to be peaceful when the factory farmers are not! If a more advanced life form invades our planet and views us humans as food would that be ok with the factory farmers?? You may print my name. Jeanie Pearson.
Farms get away with so much unnecessary abuse. They should be charged as criminals for the things they do to animals and what the workers do.
Wonderful news. Animals should have to live their lives in fear and pain and then suffer a painful death!! Is it to much to ask for these poor animals to be treated with kindness? factory farms are full torture!
It’s able time someone proposes legislation to stop this madness. Factory farms are cruel, immoral, and unethical.
20 more years of atrocious animal cruelty … and by that time the planet will be unlivable for most animals including humans of course.
Hope the Farm Reform Act of 2019 becomes a Federal Law.
Why 2040, why not sooner?
My sentiments exactly.