States Are Weighing Animal Cage Regulations For Farms
When urbanites learn that I raise chickens on my farm, they often recount an episode of the comedy sketch Portlandia where two diners ask a series of escalating questions about the chicken they’re about to order: How was the chicken raised? How big is the area where the chickens can roam free? What was the chicken’s name? (If you must know … mine are woodland and orchard-ranged, they roam on about five acres, and I don’t give them names.) These are earnest questions with answers that are hard to verify if you’re buying your food far from the farm, which may explain why measures to ensure that farm animals are raised in a humane way have made their way to the ballot in recent years.
In California, Proposition 2 passed in 2008, set rules prohibiting certain methods of confinement for chickens raised for eggs; a 2006 Arizona proposition bars tethering or confining pregnant pigs or calves raised for veal, and a 2002 Florida measure specifies the way pregnant pigs can be housed.
Now Massachusetts is getting a say on the issue with Question 3, the Massachusetts Minimum Size Requirements for Farm Animal Containment, which would prohibit the sale of eggs, veal and pork produced from animals confined in such a way that they were prevented from lying down, standing up, extending their limbs or turning around. Recent polls suggest that support for the measure outweighs opposition. Supporters include organic farmers and environmental and animal rights groups such as the Sierra Club and the Humane Society of the United States. Opposition comes from industry groups such as the National Pork Producers Council, the Massachusetts Farm Bureau and the National Association of Egg Farmers, who say it would significantly increase the cost of these products.