About Us

Advocacy

Farm animals are specifically excluded from most state anti-cruelty laws and from the federal Animal Welfare Act. But Farm Sanctuary is working to change that.

Since incorporating in 1986, Farm Sanctuary has campaigned relentlessly to prevent cruelty, and to encourage legal and policy reforms that promote respect and compassion for farm animals. We have initiated groundbreaking prosecutions and precedent-setting litigation, and we have urged passage of the first U.S. laws to prohibit inhumane factory farming practices. Our field investigations have turned up shocking cruelties, which ultimately led to reforms.

Ever since Hilda was rescued in 1986, our No Downers campaign has sought to prevent the inhumane transport and marketing of "downed animals" (animals too sick to stand). Our exposé of this issue on national television in 1991 led to the introduction of the Downed Animal Protection Act in the U.S. Congress in 1992. Since that time, we have enacted several state measures to prevent downed animal suffering, and we have prosecuted and convicted stockyards for mistreating downed animals.

We petitioned the U.S. Department of Agriculture to stop allowing downed animals in the food supply, and in 2001 the Agency agreed to stop buying meat from downed cattle for the School Lunch Program. In late 2003, shortly after the discovery of mad cow disease and facing a Farm Sanctuary lawsuit, the USDA finally enacted a temporary ban on the slaughter of downed cattle for human food, and in 2007, the department made that ban permanent. We continue to press for legislation that would close current loopholes and protect all downed animals including pigs, goats and sheep. Farm Sanctuary was among the first to recognize concerns that downed animals could harbor "mad cow" disease, producing a newsletter article in 1993 citing evidence that downed cattle in the U.S. could be afflicted with mad cow, or a variant of the disease.

Since our founding, our No Veal campaign has sought to end the suffering of calves who are chained by their necks in crates, unable to walk or exercise for their entire lives, in order to produce veal. Veal consumption has dropped from 1.6 pounds per person in 1986 to 0.5 pounds today, and nearly 500 restaurants, including five major restaurant chains have signed our pledge not to serve crated veal.

Farm Sanctuary helped pass the first-ever law in the U.S. to ban a cruel factory farming practice. We were key sponsors of the Florida ballot initiative, enacted by voters in 2002, to outlaw gestation crates. These 2-foot-wide enclosures, where breeding pigs are confined for most of their lives, have been outlawed in Europe, and we are working to ban them in the U.S. In 2006, Farm Sanctuary was a leading backer in another successful ballot initiative in Arizona that outlawed gestation crates and veal crates in the state.

Foie gras (French for "fatty liver") is an expensive paté served as an appetizer. It is the result of force feeding ducks with a pipe shoved down their throats, causing their livers to expand up to ten times their normal size. Our No Foie Gras campaign challenges this egregious abuse. We sponsored the nation's first law banning foie gras cruelty, a California measure that passed into law in 2004 and worked extensively on Chicago's law, passed in 2006, that ended the sale of foie gras within city limits. Today, we continue or work to urge passage of similar laws in other states and municipalities. Supporting these efforts, more than 900 restaurants have signed our pledge not to serve foie gras.

Farm Sanctuary also urges institutions such at the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to stop endorsing inhumane farming systems. We are forcing these institutions and others to face factory farming issues, and to question the humaneness of "normal agricultural operations."