Avian influenza (“bird flu”) returned to the United States in 2017, two years after the disease was responsible for the worst animal disease outbreak in US history, with the loss of 50 million chickens and...

The Business Benchmark on Farm Animal Welfare (BBFAW) released a report in early 2017 that scored restaurants, producers, and grocery stores on their commitment to farm animal welfare. The report showed that there is increased...

In other corporate responsibility news, restaurants and producers are beginning to make commitments to improve the lives of chickens raised for meat (known to the industry as “broiler” chickens). For instance, Panera Bread, Chipotle, and...

At a slaughterhouse in Pennsylvania last year, an employee made three attempts to render a pig unconscious with a rifle, with the animal vocalizing after each shot to the head. The plant did not have...

In 1996, animal scientist Dr. Temple Grandin conducted an audit of 24 federal slaughter plants for the US Department of Agriculture. She found that only 30 percent of the plants were able to effectively render...

In September, at a federally inspected slaughterhouse in Pennsylvania, a pig was shot three times in the head, but remained alive—vocalizing after each shot. The facility did not have a backup stunning device, so a...

Near the end of 2016, the USDA Office of Inspector General released an audit intended “to evaluate the research practices and operations of MARC” (the USDA’s Meat Animal Research Center in Clay Center, Nebraska). It...

AWI has worked to improve animal welfare standards under the US Department of Agriculture’s Certified Organic label for over 15 years. In early 2017, our efforts helped lead the USDA to finalize a rule to...

Imagine 3,000 dead chickens piled in a truck after a company failed to protect them from freezing conditions during transport, or watching someone at a slaughterhouse place the heads (instead of the legs) of live...

This fall, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Committee on World Food Security (CWFS) met in Rome to discuss pertinent issues related to sustainable agriculture development for food security and nutrition. The committee developed 12...