WASHINGTON, D.C. – The National Pork Producers Council and America’s hog farmers today thanked the Massachusetts Legislature for refusing to pass a misguided bill to restrict the rights of local farmers. Legislation backed by animal-rights groups would have prohibited hog farmers in the state from housing sows in gestation stalls.
Hog farmers – the vast majority family-owned – use gestation stalls for pregnant sows because they allow for individualized care and eliminate aggression from other sows. The Massachusetts bill would have banned the practice, as well as limited other practices farmers use to care for their animals.
The legislation was approved by the Joint Committee on the Judiciary, but then was held in the Senate Ways and Means Committee and was not brought up in the full House before the legislature ended its formal session.
For years, well-funded animal-rights groups have poured significant amounts of money into northeast states in an unsuccessful attempt to strong-arm lawmakers into passing laws that restrict the rights of farmers. The states, which have little pork production, are being used by animal-rights groups as pawns to advance a national agenda aimed at controlling how farmers raise and care for their animals.