To: Secretary of the US Department of Agriculture and state and municipal governments
Tell The Truth About Animal Farming
Friends of DxE
Demand that retailers cease using “humane” or any similar term on the packaging or in the advertisement of any animal products.
Why is this important?
Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) has investigated a number of farms that raise nonhuman animals used for meat, dairy, and egg products that retailers advertise using labels like “humane,” “free-range,” “cage-free,” and other terms that suggest those animals are treated with care and compassion and consideration of their needs; those farms include Diestel Turkey Ranch, Pitman Family Farms, Land O’Lakes dairy cooperative, and Jaindl Turkey Farms, among others. Universally, those claims proved false. In every farm we visited, we found meaningful numbers of animals who had died due to illness, starvation, and blunt force trauma, as well as many others on the verge of death. The public, which cares about the welfare of nonhuman animals and bases its purchasing decisions on the same, has been and continues to be deceived.
On a more fundamental level, our experience with the nonhuman animals used for food, including pigs, cows, and chickens, proves that they, like we, value their lives. We think that most people would be highly averse to taking their lives themselves, particularly after interacting with them. The fact that those animals are confined, mutilated, and killed on a massive scale will be looked upon by posterity as a moral catastrophe, and humane labeling serves only to forestall a genuine inquiry by the public into whether our relationship with animals needs fundamental change.
For these reasons, we ask lawmakers everywhere to ban the use of humane labeling and force farms and retailers to tell the truth about how animals raised for food are treated.
On a more fundamental level, our experience with the nonhuman animals used for food, including pigs, cows, and chickens, proves that they, like we, value their lives. We think that most people would be highly averse to taking their lives themselves, particularly after interacting with them. The fact that those animals are confined, mutilated, and killed on a massive scale will be looked upon by posterity as a moral catastrophe, and humane labeling serves only to forestall a genuine inquiry by the public into whether our relationship with animals needs fundamental change.
For these reasons, we ask lawmakers everywhere to ban the use of humane labeling and force farms and retailers to tell the truth about how animals raised for food are treated.