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In an effort to prevent the public from seeing the conditions in which farm animals are raised and slaughtered, agribusiness is aggressively pursuing “ag gag” and “farm protection” legislation that make it a crime to document factory farms. In a story published in an agricultural trade publication, a spokesperson for the Animal Ag Alliance claims that these bills “show consumers how well animals are cared for.” She also says that undercover investigators stage abuse for the cameras, bring disease onto the farms and “damage animals and crops.” 

Even though animals on factory farms often live in their own excrement, agribusiness uses “biosecurity” as a rationale to keep out investigators. “Biosecurity” was a scary word even before the recent Ebola outbreaks, so using it to scare the public into supporting “farm protection” legislation is pretty crafty – and, of course, totally duplicitous. Agribusiness knows that the public is horrified by undercover video footage which could impact their sales, so they are going to move mountains to keep the cameras out through legislation. We must therefore continue to support the efforts to kill these bills.