Colorado led the way in adopting humane farming practices. Now the U.S. House of Representatives is trying to stop that momentum.
Back in 2008, Colorado was the first state in the union to ban gestation crates for sows and veal crates for calves. In 2020, we acted to protect egg-laying hens by outlawing battery cages. Today, 15 states ban one or more of these cruel practices.
In 2010, the reform baton passed to California and then to Massachusetts. These states took the lead by adopting laws that require minimum space standards for animals not just on their own farms but all agricultural businesses selling meat and eggs within the two states.
The empire struck back. Factory farms sued California over the law, alleging it foisted excessive burdens on out-of-state pork producers. They lost. The Court upheld the California law in National Pork Producers Council v. Ross (2023) on grounds that states can impose such regulations on goods sold within their borders.
Undeterred, the industry then lobbied Congress to achieve what their lawsuit failed to accomplish. Last month, the House of Representatives agreed to do their bidding by tucking a provision in the Farm Bill that would abrogate state humane farming laws that ban gestation, veal, and battery crates.
Unfamiliar with these terms? Think Medieval torture chamber for animals. Better yet, Google the terms and see for yourself.
Gestation crates, typically 7 feet by 2 feet in size, confine sows for the duration of pregnancy. The pens prevent them from walking or even turning around. Although social, clean, and intelligent by nature, the sows cannot interact with their own kind or the natural environment. To sleep, they must lie on a grated floor smeared with excrement.
When it is time to give birth, sows are moved to a similarly cramped farrowing crate. After three weeks, the nursing piglets are taken away. The sow will breed again and return to the gestation crate to bear another litter. The cycle will continue for two to four more years before she is sent to slaughter.
Similarly, veal crates confine calves to a space hardly larger than their bodies. Chained in, they can barely move and cannot turn around or interact with their mothers or with other calves. Chickens face similarly grim conditions in battery cages. As with the others, the pitiless treatment only ends when they鈥檙e slaughtered.
There鈥檚 a reason why businesses that use these practices are called factory farms; they treat animals like widgets, not living beings and confine them in miserably small cages to maximize profits.
It doesn鈥檛 have to be this way. Colorado-based companies Coleman Natural Foods and Niman Ranch demonstrate that meat can be successfully produced while practicing humane animal husbandry.
Now it抖阴ap up to Senators Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper to act on behalf of states that have humane laws. They should amend the recently House-passed Farm Bill to remove the provision or block the bill鈥檚 final passage.
In the words of Colorado State University animal sciences Professor Temple Grandin, 鈥淲e鈥檝e got to treat animals right, and gestation stalls have got to go. Confining an animal for most of its life in a box in which it is not able to turn around does not provide a decent life.鈥�
Krista Kafer is a Sunday Denver Post columnist.
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