The EATs Act: Reversing Protections for Farmed Animals
If you like to stay up to date on news in the animal advocacy world, you have probably heard about the EATS Act in the past few months. The EATS Act (Ending Animal Agricultural Suppression Act) is a piece of legislation recently introduced by a group of congressional lawmakers as a part of the 2023 Farm Bill. If passed, the EATS Act would undo years of protective work for animals living in intensive confinement across the country. It would also have significant human and environmental implications.
Here’s what you need to know:
On the federal level, protections for farmed animals are either nonexistent (for chickens and turkeys) or extremely limited to the areas of transport and slaughter. Farmed animals are exempt from the Animal Welfare Act and other federal laws that regulate how animals are treated in human care.
Lack of regulation has allowed intensive confinement to become common practice. Intensive confinement means keeping animals in spaces where they cannot move freely, like gestation crates for pigs, veal crates for calves, and battery cages for hens in the egg industry. These practices are cheaper for farmers and have enabled the mass industrialization of the animal agriculture industry.
States can enforce their own laws around animal welfare that exceed what is required by federal law. In some cases, these laws dictate what animal products can be sold in the state. For example, Massachusetts law prohibits the sale of meat and eggs that come from animals raised in intensive confinement, like battery cages or gestation crates.
The mega corporations that control the animal agriculture industry do not want their practices to be limited or dictated by state law, especially because states who are passing these laws are not typically the states where the animals are actually being raised. Essentially, Big Ag wants to continue intensive confinement without scrutiny.
The EATS Act states that “The government of a State or a unit of local government within a State shall not impose a standard or condition on the preharvest production of any agricultural products sold or offered for sale in interstate commerce if the production occurs in another State; and the standard or condition is in addition to the standards and conditions applicable to the production pursuant to Federal law; and the laws of the State and unit of local government in which the production occurs.”
“Preharvest production of any agricultural products” sounds like it refers to plants, but it actually refers to the treatment of animals on farms. The EATS Act would drag all standards down to the level of federal law, erasing years of progress and ensuring that billions of animals raised for food in the US will continue to suffer in intensive confinement.
Like so much of what we see coming from the animal agriculture industry, the EATS act is a reaction to the fact that the public knows more than ever about conditions on farms, and are increasingly dissatisfied with those conditions. In order to comply with new regulations, farms must make changes that impact their bottom line, like sacrificing the efficiency that comes with intensive confinement, or keeping fewer animals. The industry will fight these regulations at every step in order to maintain their profits.
At Woodstock Farm Sanctuary we advocate for a world without animal agriculture, and we don't view state welfare laws as the 'end goal'. However, rolling back progress on animal protection laws only empowers industries whose environmental, social and humane impact is already dire.
Please help us ensure the progress many states have made for animals remains protected.
Make your voice heard and let your state representative know that you are opposed to the EATS Act. Find your rep here.
Want to learn more about the human and environmental impacts of the EATS Act? View some of the recent media coverage here. Or review the EATS Act for yourself here.