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Intensive Confinement
Pork Production |
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Certified Humane Raised & Handled Program Standard |
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The industrialization and consolidation of animal agriculture
in the United States and around the world has created farms
with massive scale, unnatural animal husbandry practices and
severe impacts including food safety problems, environmental
degradation, loss of family farms and animal mistreatment.
The following was compiled by the Global Resources Action
Center for the Environment (GRACE)
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Since 1986, the number
of hog operations has declined by 72%, a loss of over
247,500 operations. Of the remaining operations, 2% control
nearly half of all hog inventory. |
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Overuse of antibiotics
in animals is thought to cause more strains of drug-resistant
bacteria. The Institute of Medicine at the National Academy
of Sciences has estimated the annual cost of treating
antibiotic-resistant infections in the U.S. at $30 billion.
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In 1998, farmers earned
an average of only $7,000 per year from their farming
operations. 88% of the average farmer’s income comes
from off-the-farm sources. |
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The U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency blames current farming practices for
70% of the pollution in the nation's rivers and streams.
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Industry spokespeople estimate
that as many as 20% of breeding sows die prematurely from
exhaustion and stress due to impacts of restrictive confinement
and accelerated breeding schedules at concentrated animal
feeding operations. |
Although leading nonprofits, such as USPIRG,
Clean Water Network and major animal protection organizations,
are advancing legislative and legal means to control intensive
confinement production practices, the legal process is very
slow to change these conditions.
In 1998, Adele Douglass, now Executive Director of the organization
that manages the Certified Humane Raised & Labeled program,
worked on a project supported by the Fund for Rural America
to explore worker safety, environmental protection and animal
care issues in hog farming. She traveled to the U.K. to visit
farms using more humane practices. She also met with representatives
of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
and learned about their success with the Freedom Foods program,
expanding the market for meat, poultry egg and dairy from
animals raised to humane care standards.
As a veteran lobbyist and former congressional staff member,
Ms. Douglass knew the limitations of the legislative process.
She immediately saw how a program in the U.S. like Freedom
Foods would enable consumers to vote with their wallets for
more humane production practices. She has been working ever
since to make that vision a reality, first by launching the
Free Farmed program as Executive Director of Farm Animal Services
and now by building and managing the Certified Humane Raised
& Handled program as Executive Director of Humane Farm
Animal Care.
Humane Farm Animal Care is a 501c3 nonprofit organization
supported by --
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The American Society for
the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA)
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The Humane Society of the
United States (HSUS) >> |
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The Massachusetts Society
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (MSPCA) >> |
…
and other animal welfare organizations, as well as by grants
and donations. Our mission is to improve the lives of farm
animals by providing viable, credible duly monitored standards
for humane food production; and ensure consumers that certified
products meet these standards.
U.S. consumers
can now choose products from farmers who pursue animal-friendly,
sustainable farming methods by looking for the Certified Humane
Raised & Handled label.
“What is the Certified Humane
Raised & Handled Label?”
The People behind Humane Farm Animal
Care:
The Board of
Directors
The Scientific
Committee
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