The U.S. House recently passed its version of the multi-year Farm Bill, H.R. 7567. Disappointingly, U.S. Rep. Tom Barrett voted in favor of this legislation, which includes a highly destructive corporate handout deceptively named the “Save Our Bacon” Act.
This rider is an aggressive piece of federal overreach designed by the industrial factory farming lobby. Its purpose is to strip state and local governments of their right to establish their own public health, food safety, and animal welfare standards. Specifically, it targets popular, voter-approved laws that ban the sale of pork produced using cruel gestation crates—extreme confinement cages so cramped that pregnant sows cannot even turn around.
By wiping out these state regulations, the rider actively undermines independent family farmers who spent their own hard-earned money to upgrade their operations and meet the demand for more humane products. Barrett’s vote sides with massive corporate agribusiness conglomerates at the expense of our independent agricultural producers and our local democratic rights.
The Senate Agriculture Committee fortunately left this harmful language out of its initial framework. I strongly urge Senators Peters and Slotkin to stand firm against factory farm giants, protect independent farmers, and ensure the “Save Our Bacon” rider is completely stripped from the final Farm Bill.
Peggy Van Sickle
Brighton
