Center for A Humane Economy Inc

We are working to end mink farming for fur — an industry that causes immense suffering to mink and poses major animal and human health threats because of the unique susceptibility of factory-farmed mink to SARS-CoV-2.

Until the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, American mink (Neovison vison) had been housed on factory farms for their dense, luxurious pelts in 36 countries, including the United States and Canada. About 90% of milk pelts produced in North America are exported to China, where they clothe a wealthy elite. There are three intertwined and important rationales to the effort to ban mink farming in the U.S.:

1. Mink farming is a serious and unpredictable zoonotic hazard and an animal health catastrophe.
2. Mink farming is a chimera of all the worst elements of animal exploitation and abuse.
3. Farmed captive mink are invasive and injurious to wildlife and the natural environment.

We are working toward a national policy to ban gestation crates on pig farms and small cages at laying hen facilities.

Many breeding pigs and laying hens are confined in cages that barely allow the animals to move more than a few inches. Animals built to move should be allowed to move, and this kind of extreme confinement is inhumane, producing adverse psychological and physical effects for the animals conscripted into food production for humanity.

So far dozens of major food retailers including Safeway, McDonald’s and Subway have pledged to phase out the use of pork or eggs from producers who confine sows in gestation crates by 2022 or laying hens in cages by 2025.

Alternatives such as electronic sow feeding systems and pasture-based operations for laying hens provide better living environments than cages or crates. Food retailers that do not meet high standards for living environments risk compromising their reputation and the public’s trust.

Cockfighting is one of the biggest underground animal-use industries in the United States, with fighting birds raised on an agricultural scale. There are millions of fighting birds in the U.S., thousands of cockfighting “farms,” and perhaps hundreds of pits and arenas, with U.S.-based cockfighters acting as the breeding ground for the global industry. In cockfights, handlers attach sharp knives or curved icepicks (called “gaffs”) to roosters’ legs, weapons intended to enhance the bloodletting and maim or kill the birds conscripted into the pit to fight. Animal fighting is one of the most gruesome forms of animal exploitation, with the animals hacked up for the mere pleasure and wagering by handlers and spectators. Cockfighting is a global enterprise, conducted from Mexico to Manilla.

We are working to end an archaic and wasteful milk mandate in the National School Lunch Program and to give kids a plant-based choice that delivers comparable nutrition without making them ill.

The National School Lunch Program has a "milk mandate" for children who qualify for the nutrition assistance program (30 million kids are provided with lunch, and 15 million with breakfast). The problem is, millions of kids who participate in the program are lactose intolerant, and dairy milk makes them sick, causing many of them to throw the milk away or to drink it and risk illness. Kids need a choice, and soymilk has been recognized under the American Dietary Guidelines. Soy is one of the biggest agricultural sectors in the U.S., with more than 500,000 farmers who'd like to see their product offered in the schools.

This program will also benefit dairy cows by reducing the demand for milk.