The New Jersey Department of Agriculture (NJDA) has pulled a fast one on the citizens of New Jersey. More than ten years after being directed by the legislature to come up with a code of humane standards for treatment of farm animals, the NJDA has instead done the opposite. At a time when national trends find millions of consumers turning away from the inhumane and irrational practices of factory farming and animal confinement, the NJDA has astounded the public by actually creating codes that will make the cruelest known forms of factory farming legal.
Under the NJDA's set of "humane" standards, it is perfectly acceptable to confine pigs in 2-foot-wide crates in a space barely larger than their bodies, and to keep them there for years. Likewise the NJDA considers it humane to take baby calves from their mothers at birth and to chain them by the neck inside tiny crates for their entire lives. But the public knows better. These practices are cruel and outside the bounds of acceptable conduct in our society.
The legislature's directive to develop humane standards is part of a growing societal awareness and opposition to the way animals are treated on today's industrialized factory farms. The NJDA's arrogance in flouting the legislature's mandate is particularly ironic because it comes at a time when Smithfield and Strauss, respectively the nation's largest pork and veal producers, have announced plans to discontinue using cruel intensive confinement systems.
Even the likes of Burger King and the esteemed Wolfgang Puck have recognized that factory farming confinement just won't fly with the public anymore. They have announced plans to curtail their purchasing of products from cruelly confined animals.
The NJDA would do well to follow this trend, and to do right by the people and animals of the state.
Gene Baur
President, Farm Sanctuary
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