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For many people, industrial animal agriculture law is an integral, yet often unnoticed, part of daily life. It shapes every day experiences such as the food that appears on breakfast plates, lunch trays, and dinner tables; determines which crops dominate millions of acres of farmland; and supplies animal-derived ingredients used in food, fuels, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals, to name just a few things. Despite its pervasive presence, most people have never heard of the term “industrial animal agriculture law” nor visited these so-called “farms.” This distance between consumer and producer allows for misconceptions about the industrialized system that has largely replaced traditional farming practices to persist.
What is Industrial Animal Agriculture?
Industrial animal agriculture is a system of animal production in which extremely large numbers of animals are raised in confinement in order to maximize efficiency and output. These industrial animal farming operations, which are also referred to as concentrated agriculture feeding operations (CAFOs) or “factory farms,” produce approximately 99 percent of all animal products in the United States.
Despite being the dominant form of animal agriculture in the United States (and increasingly around the world), many people do not realize how much the legal frameworks that govern CAFOs, including the exemptions and regulatory gaps that sustain them, influence our everyday lives. The industrialization of raising animals for food comes at a significant cost to the animals, humans, and the environment, with far-reaching impacts on everyday life.
Our Industrial Animal Agriculture Law Course
Professor Cynthia von Schlichten, General Counsel of Farm Sanctuary and an alumni of Lewis & Clark Law School’s Animal Law LLM Program, teaches the online Industrial Animal Agriculture Law Course, while Visiting Assistant Professor Hira Jaleel, also one of our Animal Law LLM alums, teaches the course in the in-person course. Students who are passionate about the impact of industrial animal agriculture on the animals also learn about intersectional issues, explore how the law enables this system to exist, and consider legal tools and strategies that can be effectively used to challenge and change such systems in the U.S. and abroad.
Animal Welfare
At the center of this topic, is of course the animals themselves. The intensive confinement that is the hallmark of industrial animal agriculture prevents animals from engaging in natural behaviors and causes them to endure chronic stress, painful mutilations, injuries and diseases. From birth to slaughter, their lives are shaped by conditions designed to maximize efficiency, not their well being. The general public is surprised to learn that the laws fail to prevent these harms to animals, and students in the Industrial Animal Agriculture Law course study these laws and compare and contrast them with the laws in other countries.
For example, the Animal Welfare Act, the primary federal U.S. law protecting animals, excludes farmed animals used or intended for use in food or fiber from its scope. The Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, which requires animals to be stunned into a state of unconsciousness before being shackled, hoisted, or cut, excludes chickens, turkeys, or other birds, even though they make up the vast majority of animals killed for food in the U.S. Further, the 28-Hour Law, which applies to farmed animals during transport to slaughter, requires only bare minimum, food, water, and rest, every 28 hours. The 28-Hour Law, like the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, also excludes chickens, turkeys and other birds. Both laws are commonly criticized as being severely under-enforced, as well as inadequate in scope.
State anti-cruelty statutes in the U.S. provide similarly minimal safeguards for farmed animals. Many purport to include carve outs for farmed animals altogether, or exempt “commonly accepted” or “customary” agricultural or husbandry practices, regardless of how harmful such practices may be to the animals. Students in the Industrial Animal Law course learn about these laws, as well as those that relate to intersectional issues such as the environment, worker safety, and public health.
Environmental Concerns
The environmental footprint of CAFOS is extensive. CAFOs are a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, biodiversity loss, species extinction and exhaustion of water resources. Furthermore, the massive amount of waste produced by CAFOs is a primary polluter of water systems, damaging ecosystems and contaminating drinking water.
The communities most impacted by these harms are those who work in or live near CAFOs. Because these facilities are disproportionately concentrated in low-income areas and communities of color, the environmental burdens they create raise serious environmental justice concerns, as shown in a recent study regarding North Carolina’s hog CAFOs.
Public Health Risks
CAFOs also pose a significant threat to public health by producing infectious diseases. The overcrowded, unsanitary conditions present in CAFOs are ideal environments for viruses to mutate and spread, such as Avian Influenza and even COVID-19. In an effort to try and prevent widespread outbreaks, producers rely heavily on antibiotics, which contributes to antibiotic- resistant bacterias. Additionally, the physical demands of intensive production such as artificial reproduction and accelerated growth, coupled with the routine mutilations including dehorning, beak trimming, and castration, leave animals particularly prone to diseases.
Industrial animal agriculture is more than just a method of food production, it shapes everyday life from environmental quality to public health. Professor von Schlicthen says that for students who study in the advanced degree program “Understanding how the law sustains this model helps to illuminate both its widespread impacts as well as the opportunities to create change.”