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U.S. Farm Bills: Don’t Look, Don’t Tell

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Seems that every couple of years or so I feel compelled to refer to the witticism about the unpleasant nature of making laws and sausages. This time, however, the link between the making of food and laws is rather more serious; this time the laws would compel us to avert our eyes — from farming, at least.

As factory farming has grown over the years, competition has increased and the pressure on farmers to keep the price of food low has remained steady. The result in many, or most, cases has been a deterioration in the conditions in which food animals are raised. Various exposés and polemics, such as the powerful film Food, Inc. and the very popular books by Michael Pollan, have contributed to a growing movement concerned to investigate the treatment of animals on farms and to advocate for its betterment. In response, some U.S. farm lobbies, very powerful in farming states, have caused bills to be placed before state legislatures that would criminalize certain acts designed to publicize the treatment of animals.

Known as “ag-gag” bills, these have been introduced in the last year in Minnesota, Florida, New York, and Iowa, that I’m aware of. All have failed in one way or another, typically falling when the legislature goes into recess.

The last of the current crop to fall was Iowa’s, House File 589. What has particularly worried opponents is that this bill, like the others, would punish the taking of pictures or the recording of sounds of animals on farms. (That this would almost certainly be in violation of the U.S. constitution seems not to have bothered the bills’ proponents.) The relevant portion of the Iowa bill is set out below:

    Sec. 9. NEW SECTION . 717A.2A Animal facility interference.

    1. A person is guilty of animal facility interference, if the person acts without the consent of the owner of an animal facility to willfully do any of the following:

      a. (1) Produce a record which reproduces an image or sound occurring at the animal facility as follows:

        (a) The record must be created by the person while at the animal facility.
        (b) The record must be a reproduction of a visual or audio experience occurring at the animal facility, including but not limited to a photographic or audio medium.

      (2) Possess or distribute a record which produces an image or sound occurring at the animal facility which was produced as provided in subparagraph (1).

Mark Bittman has written regularly in the New York Times to criticize these bills. His two most recent pieces are: Who Protects the Animals and Banned From the Barn

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