FW: Update from Certified Humane

November 16, 2007

From the Executive Director of Humane Farm Animal CareCan you volunteer time to help us help farm animals?

Happy Holidays! I hope that this message finds you and your loved ones in good health and good spirits. As we approach the holidays, I'm pleased to send you this update on the progress that Humane Farm Animal Care (HFAC) has made this year through the Certified Humane Raised & Handled® program. I'd also like to invite you to join our effort as a volunteer.

At the end of 2003, about 143,000 animals were being raised under the Certified Humane program’s stringent, scientifically-based Animal Care Standards. During 2007, over 18.7 million animals will have been raised under these compassionate standards. As numbers go, that’s nowhere near 10 billion, which is how many animals are slaughtered for food every year in the U.S. But it represents enormous growth in an effort that many people in agriculture and the animal welfare movement told me would never work, would never “fly.” It means we’re on the right track, and we’re moving ahead.

It means that over 18.7 million individual chickens, turkeys, pigs, goats, sheep, and cattle have been able to live more comfortable, healthy lives because they’re able to engage in the natural, instinctive behaviors that, in part, make them what they are. On farms that have passed rigorous third-party inspections to participate in the Certified Humane program, chickens can dust-bathe, pigs can root, cows can graze, and all farm animals are able to live out their lives with the space, shelter, nutrition, and gentle handling they need and deserve.

But at Humane Farm Animal Care (HFAC), we can’t rest on our laurels––we have a long way to go, and many, many farms and farm animals to cover with our program. We must continually reach out to new communities with information about humane farming and the Certified Humane program.

With that in mind, I’d like to invite you to join us by volunteering to help us spread the word about Certified Humane. Do you have time to distribute our brochure to the grocery stores where you shop, and to ask store managers to carry products carrying the Certified Humane logo? Could you tell your friends and family about Certified Humane and how it helps animals? There are so many ways to make a difference right where you live. If you're interested, please click here to email Mary Chesnut, HFAC's director of outreach, and let her know that you'd like to learn more about volunteering.

HFAC’s goal is to ensure that all farm animals in the U.S. have the best possible lives, from birth through slaughter. We are not interested in building only a niche market for humanely-raised food, since we believe that humane treatment is something that should be valued by all of us.

We need your help to move humane farming practices from the exception to the rule in our country. The Certified Humane program is an essential element of that shift, because we have set the standard not only for the humane care of farm animals, but also for accountability in the way our program is run.

As you may know, some farm-animal welfare labeling programs ask only that participating farmers and ranchers fill out affidavits in which they claim to be practicing humane methods. But affidavits without on-farm inspections simply aren’t enough—that’s why we inspect every certified farm every year, and why we maintain the right to conduct spot-check inspections of any Certified Humane farm at any time. Accountability matters—not only for consumers, but especially for the animals, as well.

Without accountability, the Certified Humane program would not deserve the respect of consumers and animal advocates, and it would not meet my own high standards for integrity and reliability. But accountability comes at a price. Unlike many other programs, Certified Humane must bear the cost of intensive annual audits of our records, the expense of maintaining a certification quality-control system, and the cost of mobilizing a nationwide network of third-party farm inspectors. On top of that, we conduct ambitious consumer-education campaigns every year, in order to let consumers across the country know that they, too, have the power to help change the way animals are raised for food. All this is done with a tiny staff in a small office in Virginia.

Certified Humane is a labor of love, and I invite you to join us by making a gift of time, or a financial contribution, or both.

For the animals, it all comes down to small changes that make all the difference: dust-bathing, rooting, grazing, stretching, playing, socializing, relaxing, breathing easily, eating well, being healthy, and, in the end, experiencing a calm, stress-free death. Working together, we can keep moving forward to help more and more animals.

As we look forward to the holidays this year, I hope you will help us reach millions more animals. Your gift of time and your tax-deductible financial contribution will help us build market demand for humanely produced food, while raising awareness of the need for rigorous humane standards. Altogether, that will translate into better lives for more animals, year after year.

Thanks for reading, and for all you do to help animals. On behalf of all of us at HFAC, I look forward to hearing from you, and to working with you to help every farm in our country be a humane one.

Sincerely,

Adele DouglassExecutive Director