By Wayne Pacelle

This session, Commonwealth lawmakers are considering a bill that might seem a little unexpected at first blush: one introduced by Rep. Pam Richardson (D-Framingham) to prevent cruel and inhumane treatment of farm animals.

Supported by the MSPCA and The Humane Society of the United States, Rep. Richardson’s bill is nearly identical to a law enacted last year in California, the nation’s largest agricultural state. It simply requires that certain farm animals have enough room to turn around and extend their limbs.

While obviously modest, the law prevents three of the most notorious factory farming abuses: veal crates for calves, battery cages for hens, and gestation crates for breeding pigs – methods of extreme confinement that inflict misery upon hundreds of millions of animals without even a touch of mercy.

Massachusetts’ agribusiness industry might not be as large as California’s, but Richardson’s proposal is significant nonetheless. Six states, including Maine in April, have passed similar laws in recent years.

Why the fuss about how we treat animals raised for food? Quite simply, because some standard agribusiness practices have grown dramatically out of step with mainstream American values about preventing animal abuse. Domestic factory farms cram massive numbers of animals into crates and cages too small to allow normal motion for months on end.

Fortunately, there’s a tidal wave of opposition to this abuse. Polls show that Massachusetts voters —-like those in other states that have enacted similar laws —- overwhelmingly favor phasing out these extreme abuses. We’d never force our dogs and cats to endure permanent confinement in cages barely larger than their own bodies, and we shouldn’t impose such misery on farm animals, either.
 
In Massachusetts, thousands of egg-laying hens at farms like Diemand Egg Farm in Orange are confined in these barren wire battery cages for nearly their whole lives. They can barely move. Each bird generally has less space than a sheet of letter-sized paper on which to live for a year before she’s slaughtered. It’s hard to imagine a more miserable existence.

Similarly, hundreds of thousands of veal calves across the nation are forced into crates too narrow for them to turn around or lie down comfortably. Typically chained by their necks, they’re virtually immobilized and can’t engage in natural behaviors.

As well, our nation’s factory farms confine millions of breeding pigs in gestation crates—two-foot-wide individual metal cages barely bigger than their bodies—for nearly their entire four-month pregnancies. These intelligent, social animals suffer terribly and develop crippling joint disorders and lameness from this confinement.

It’s not only common sense that says such extreme confinement is wrong. There’s an abundance of scientific evidence pointing to the same conclusion. For example, the issue was extensively studied for two and a half years by the prestigious Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production—an independent panel chaired by former Kansas Governor John Carlin. Other members included former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman, researchers, veterinarians, and ranchers. The commissioners reviewed the vast array of scientific literature on the topic and unanimously concluded that battery cages, gestation crates, and veal crates should be phased out.

The combination of legislative advances, scientific evidence and public concern has begun to trigger modest but meaningful improvements in agribusiness. Smithfield Foods and Maple Leaf Foods, respectively the largest U.S. and Canadian pig producers, are converting from gestation crates to group pens where the animals have more freedom of movement. Strauss Veal, the nation’s largest veal producer, is no longer using veal crates, and the American Veal Association has urged the entire veal industry to do the same. And hundreds of schools, including many in Massachusetts such as Harvard, MIT, and Tufts, have begun switching to cage-free eggs in their cafeterias.

By passing HB 815, the legislature can lend its might to the important cause of reducing cruelty. Ensuring that farm animals have enough room to turn around and extend their limbs is a reasonable and meaningful reform, and lawmakers on Beacon Hill should support it.

Wayne Pacelle is president and chief executive of the Humane Society of the United States.