Order Code RS21978
Updated September 7, 2007
Humane Treatment of Farm Animals:
Overview and Issues
Geoffrey S. Becker
Specialist in Agricultural Policy
Resources, Science, and Industry Division
Summary
Animal protection activists in the United States have long sought legislation to
modify or curtail some practices considered by U.S. agriculture to be both acceptable
and necessary to animal health. Members of Congress over the years have offered
various bills that would affect animal care on the farm, during transport, or at slaughter;
in 2007 these include H.R. 503, S. 311, H.R. 661, S. 394, and H.R. 1726. Members of
the House and Senate Agriculture Committees generally have expressed a preference for
voluntary rather than regulatory approaches to humane methods of care.
Background
USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is responsible for
enforcing the Animal Welfare Act (AWA; 7 U.S.C. 2131 et seq.), which requires
minimum standards of care for certain warm-blooded animals bred for commercial sale,
used in research, transported commercially, or exhibited to the public. However, the act
excludes farm animals raised for food and fiber from coverage.
The Humane Methods of Slaughter Act (7 U.S.C. 1901 et seq.), enforced by USDA’s
Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), governs the humane slaughter and handling
of livestock (but not poultry) at packing plants. Also, under the so-called Twenty-Eight
Hour Law (49 U.S.C. 80502, last amended in 1994), many types of carriers “may not
confine animals in a vehicle or vessel for more than 28 consecutive hours without
unloading the animals for feeding, water, and rest.”1
At the state level, laws to prevent deliberate animal cruelty sometimes apply to farm
animals, but few states have prescribed on-farm treatment standards. Some exceptions
1 See also CRS Report RS22493, The Animal Welfare Act: Background and Selected Legislation,
by Geoffrey S. Becker; CRS Report 94-731, Brief Summaries of Federal Animal Protection
Statutes, by Henry Cohen; and the USDA’s Animal Welfare Information Center,
[http://riley.nal.usda.gov/nal_display/index.php?tax_level=1&info_center=3&tax_subject=170].

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are Florida, where voters in 2002 approved a ballot measure outlawing gestation crates
for pigs, and Arizona, where voters did the same, along with a veal stall ban, in 2006.
Criticisms of Animal Agriculture Practices. Many animal protection groups
assert that today’s intensive farming systems perpetuate standard practices that in their
view are harmful to animals’ well-being. Examples include:
! Rearing large numbers of livestock or poultry in close confinement with
little or no room for natural movement and activity (e.g., housing sows
in small gestation crates);
! Isolating veal calves in small crates;
! Performing surgery such as docking hog tails, dehorning cattle, and
trimming poultry beaks (so that confined animals do not hurt each other);
! Permitting commercial movement of nonambulatory livestock
(“downers”) that are disabled due to sickness or injury;
! Not fully stunning poultry (which are not covered by the Humane
Slaughter Act) and, sometimes, livestock (most of which are covered)
before slaughter;
! Slaughtering horses and other equines for human food.
Some of these groups link intensive animal agriculture with soil and water pollution,
food safety problems (e.g., misuse of animal drugs, and foodborne bacterial illnesses), and
the decline of smaller-scale, “family” farms. They also believe that if regulators approve
future applications of biotechnology — such as animal cloning, genetic alterations to
improve productivity, and the use of livestock as “factories” for pharmaceuticals and
human organs — animal well-being will be compromised. Some animal rights groups
advance the more controversial argument that humans have no right to use animals for
any purpose, including for food.
Defense of Animal Agriculture Practices. Farmers and ranchers maintain that
they understand their animals’ welfare needs and address them adequately. They express
concern that efforts by poorly informed critics could lead to the imposition of costly and
counterproductive regulations harmful to their industry and the animals alike.
Agricultural, food processing, and a number of animal science groups have argued that
support for science, education, and voluntary guidelines are more effective ways of
assuring animal welfare.
Recognizing that a growing number of customers are concerned about animal
treatment, some within the food industry are developing humane animal care guidelines
and requiring suppliers to adhere to them. Chains such as McDonald’s, Burger King, and
Wendy’s in the late 1990s began requiring meat and poultry suppliers to meet certain care
standards. In 2001 the Food Marketing Institute, which represents supermarkets, and the
National Council of Chain Restaurants began an animal welfare audit program to develop,
in cooperation with animal producer groups and animal scientists, more data on animal
welfare on farms and in slaughterhouses, and to help their members use it to implement
standards of care, with third-party compliance audits. In January 2007, Smithfield Farms,
the largest U.S. pork producer, announced that it would require its hog producers to phase
out over 10 years the use of sow gestation crates, which, activists have long argued,
provide far too little room for an animal to move. Some animal welfare groups contend
that the industry standards are not strong or specific enough, and/or are not enforceable.

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In Congress
Members of Congress have offered various proposals to require changes in the
treatment of animals on the farm, during transport, or at slaughter. Members of the House
and Senate Agriculture Committees, which generally have jurisdiction over such bills,
have held hearings on various farm animal welfare issues, but they generally express a
preference for voluntary rather than regulatory approaches to improving animal care.
Horse Slaughter. For many years, horse protection groups have sought federal
legislation banning the slaughter of horses for human food. Policy issues focus on the
acceptability of the practice and on how to dispose of or care for unwanted horses if such
slaughter were no longer permitted. Three foreign-owned plants in Texas and Illinois
slaughtered nearly 105,000 U.S. horses for human food in 2006, all for export.
During respective floor debates on USDA’s FY2006 appropriation (H.R. 2744; P.L.
109-97), the House and Senate approved amendments to ban use of appropriated funds to
pay for the inspection of these horses. The presumption was that since inspection is
required for any meat to enter the human food supply, a ban on inspection funding would
halt the practice. Although House-Senate conferees retained the funding ban, the
accompanying conference report stated: “It is the understanding of the conferees that the
Department is obliged under existing statutes to provide for the inspection of meat
intended for human consumption (domestic and exported). The conferees recognize that
the funding limitation in Section 794 prohibits the use of appropriations only for payment
of salaries or expenses of personnel to inspect horses.” Subsequently, the three plants
petitioned USDA for voluntary ante-mortem inspection services, as authorized by the
Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946, with the ante-mortem portion funded by user fees.
USDA agreed to this plan, which took effect in early 2006.
On January 19, 2007, however, a federal appeals court panel declared a Texas law
banning commerce in horsemeat to be enforceable, effectively closing the two plants
there.2 The remaining plant in Illinois in mid-2007 was fighting in the courts to remain
open after the legislature enacted a state law banning the practice.
In the 110th Congress, animal welfare groups continue to seek new federal legislation
to end horse slaughter. The FY2008 USDA appropriation (H.R. 3161) passed by the
House in late July 2007 would continue (in Section 738) a prohibition against using
appropriated funds to inspect horses prior to slaughter for human food, as well as prohibit
the USDA-FSIS rule (see above) that has provided for the collection of user fees. The
committee-reported Senate version (S. 1859) does not include the ban; full Senate action
is pending. Also pending are freestanding bills (H.R. 503, S. 311) to prohibit permanently
the movement and slaughter of horses for human food.
Downers. In 2005, the Senate-passed version of H.R. 2744 also had included a
floor amendment, sponsored by Senator Akaka, to prohibit nonambulatory livestock (also
called “downers”) from being used for human food. The Akaka amendment would have
applied not only to cattle, but also to any sheep, swine, goats, horses, mules or other
equines unable to stand or walk unassisted at inspection. The House version lacked such
2 See CRS Report RS21842, Horse Slaughter Prevention Bills and Issues, by Geoffrey S. Becker.

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a ban, and conferees removed the Senate language prior to final passage. The proposal has
re-emerged in the 110th Congress as S. 394 and H.R. 661. The bills also would require that
all nonambulatory livestock be humanely euthanized rather than slaughtered.
Elsewhere, after a cow with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or “mad cow”
disease) was found in December 2003 in Washington State, the Secretary of Agriculture,
among other things, administratively invoked an immediate ban on all nonambulatory
cattle (considered to be at higher risk for BSE) from slaughter establishments. The
number of such animals at the time was estimated by the Secretary to be 150,000-200,000
out of the 35 million U.S. cattle slaughtered yearly. Officials did note that animals can
become unable to walk for non-BSE reasons such as broken bones, and they are not
necessarily hazardous to the food supply.3
Some officials had argued that a downer ban could be deleterious both to food safety
and to animal disease prevention. This argument has contended that euthanizing and
removing downed animals before arrival at a federally inspected slaughterhouse could
deny USDA veterinarians the opportunity to see and evaluate them for safety and disease
purposes. In response, USDA officials said they have been working more closely with the
industry to collect samples on the farm, at rendering facilities, and other places.
Meanwhile, many animal protection advocates believe a legislated downer ban is still
necessary to attain animal welfare benefits — not only for cattle but for other farm-raised
livestock not covered by the Secretary’s BSE-related ban.
Humane Slaughter. With FSIS under criticism for what some said was lax
enforcement of the humane slaughter act, lawmakers included, in the 2002 farm law (P.L.
107-171, Section 10305), a resolution urging USDA to fully enforce the act and to report
the number of violations to Congress annually. Since then, committee reports
accompanying several annual USDA appropriations measures have earmarked millions
of dollars to FSIS for full-time inspectors to oversee compliance, and for incorporation of
a humane activities tracking system into the agency’s field computer systems. In the 102nd
through 104th Congresses, legislative proposals were introduced to include poultry under
the humane slaughter act, but no action was taken on them.
Federal Procurement Standards. A proposal in 2006 that did not pass but has
been reintroduced into the 110th Congress as H.R. 1726 would require the federal
government to purchase products derived from animals only if they were raised according
to humane standards (i.e., had adequate shelter with sufficient space to walk and move
around with limbs fully extended, had adequate food and water with no starvation or force-
feeding, and had adequate veterinary care).
3 See also CRS Report RL33037, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE or “Mad Cow
Disease”): Current and Proposed Safeguards, by Sarah A. Lister and Geoffrey S. Becker.

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