Democratic Lawmakers Introduce Bill to End Factory Farming, Livestock Groups Fight Back

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) introduced the legislation, called "Farm System Reform Act." The legislators say the legislation places a priority on provisions to address consolidation and unfair practices within animal agriculture, calling out confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs). 

“Large, multinational meatpackers, because of their buying power and size, are putting our food system at risk and harming everyone along the supply chain. We need to fix the broken system – that means giving family farmers and ranchers a fair shot and holding corporate integrators responsible for the harm they are causing,” said Sen. Booker. “We must immediately begin to transition to a more sustainable and humane system. An important first step is ending our reliance on huge factory farms and investing in a system that focuses on resilient and regenerative production.”

Livestock Producers Push Back 

Livestock groups are pushing back, pointing out "factory farms" are more fiction than fact, with USDA showing 96% of farms in the U.S. are family owned. 

National Cattlemen's Beef Association (NCBA) responded to the legislation calling it a "kind of broad, jumbled mess you get when you’re more focused on Twitter and talking points than the sound legislating rural Americans need."

NCBA says the announcement by USDA and Agriculture Secretary last week is a sound option, offering "practical, long-term progress for producers." Vilsack announced $500 million in new funds to help expand small and medium size processing plants across the country, a move Vilsack said would level the playing field for farmers and create a strengthen the food chain. NCBA claims the legislation introduced by a group of democratic members of Congress will do the opposite. 

“95 percent of cattle raised in the United States visit a feedyard. Feeding operations aren’t antithetical to small, family-owned farms and ranches — they’re part and parcel of the same, symbiotic supply chain that produces the most nutritious, sustainable beef in the world," says Ethan Lane, NCBA Vice President of Government Affairs. "Cattle feeders respond efficiently to meet a wide range of consumer demands, and that efficiency is one of the main reasons why the United States has had the lowest beef GHG emissions intensity in the world for 25 years. As our food supply chain is taxed by a growing number of mouths to feed at home and abroad, this efficient production system will be more vital than ever."

Amanda Adam, a pork producer in Washington County, Iowa, says while legislation like this and Prop 12 continue to be introduced, it's creating unintended consequences. And she says in the case of raising pigs, some of these proposed changes could actually cause more harm for animals, even high death rates. 

"The way that we treat pigs in these environments, it's a gift to have these individual stalls for these gestating animals, because the nature of animals is to pick out an animal and kind of pick one out of the crowd, and if you are the gestating south, the open pen housing is potentially more harmful from an animal welfare standpoint than having the animal in a crate," says Adam. " And in the case of Proposition 12 in California, it's saying that in a 24 hour period, the animal cannot spend more than six consecutive hours in in a crate. And I just think that people don't understand the beauty and the gift of crates to protect the animal not as something to confine the animal, but especially during a period of gestating, how much that actually protects that animal during that time period."

Supporters of "Fair System Reform Act"
 
Supporters of the "Farm System Reform Act," say almost 10 billion animals are raised on what they call "factory farms" each year, and described it as crowded facilities with intensive confinement. They say as a result, animals are able to carry out even some of the most basic natural behaviors. 

Original cosponsors of the "Farm System Reform Act" include Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) in the Senate, and Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), Cori Bush(D-Mo.), Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.), Mark Pocan (D.Wis.), Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), and Andy Levin (D-Mich.) in the House of Representatives.