The World Organisation for Animal Health (known by its French initials, “OIE”), at its annual meeting in Paris in May, approved a new chapter on the welfare of pigs for inclusion in the organization’s Terrestrial...

The North Carolina General Assembly gave final approval to a bill that restricts nuisance lawsuits against factory farms and other agricultural operations. The law is a reaction to several lawsuits won by plaintiffs who have...

The Council of Better Business Bureau’s National Advertising Division (NAD) has concluded that claims made by Perdue Farms in a national broadcast advertising campaign were misleading. NAD is a nonregulatory body that provides a mediation...

Every five years or so, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association releases a National Beef Quality Audit, conducted through the beef checkoff program (checkoff programs collect money from producers to fund promotional campaigns and research). The...

In March, the Law Library of Congress released an in-depth report on the legal status of religious slaughter in 21 European nations. The European Union’s Council Regulation 1099/2009 and the Council of Europe’s Convention for...

In March, Iowa enacted a law that will require most egg retailers in the state to continue carrying “conventional” eggs from hens raised in densely packed battery cages. Only those stores that had already fully...

When the US Department of Agriculture withdrew the Organic Livestock and Poultry Practices rule earlier this year, it did so at the behest of a handful of large organic producers that seek to profit from...

The US Department of Agriculture recently proposed several changes to the process of slaughtering pigs, including allowing slaughterhouses to operate without any limits on the speed of the line. Pigs are already slaughtered on some...

The last shipment of live pigs from the US mainland—at least for the foreseeable future—has docked in Hawaii. For decades, pigs have been subjected to an arduous week-long journey by truck and ship to meet...

Perdue Farms has become the first major poultry producer in the United States to commit to adopting a process of stunning with gas, known as controlled atmosphere stunning (CAS), at all of its chicken slaughter...