Why the Current Farm Bill is Bad for Animals

The “Farm Bill” is an important piece of federal legislation that has widespread consequences for farm animals, as well as for consumers and farmers. While the current bill’s supporters are promoting it as legislation that helps “farmers, ranchers, and rural communities,” the truth is that the recently passed House version of the farm bill supports “Big Ag” and includes dangerous language that aims to subvert the will of the people by overturning state animal welfare legislation that banned extreme confinement of farm animals.

What is the Farm Bill?

The bill, officially titled, “The Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026,” funds and authorizes programs within the Department of Agriculture. It is an omnibus bill (a massive piece of legislation that combines many policies together into one package), which will shape agricultural and animal welfare policies for years to come.

While the Farm Bill traditionally covers everything from trade to land conservation to nutrition assistance programs and livestock disease preparedness, members of Congress have hidden a dangerous piece of legislation within the House bill, known as the “Save Our Bacon Act.” This provision will harm animals and take away states’ right to craft their own legislation around farm animal welfare.

In May, the House of Representatives passed a version of the Farm Bill (H.R. 7567), which includes an exact copy of the “Save Our Bacon Act” (H.R. 4673). This legislation, which has been pushed by the pork industry, aims to overturn groundbreaking laws like Question 3 in Massachusetts, Proposition 12 in California, and animal welfare laws in other states, especially those which banned the sale of pork that comes from pigs who are held in gestation crates.

Gestation crates are a form of extreme confinement where mother pigs are trapped for their entire pregnancy, a period of about four months, only to have their newborn piglets stolen from them in order to supply the meat industry. These metal cages are so small that the pigs cannot turn around, groom themselves, interact with other pigs, or move more than a few steps. Many of the mother pigs on factory farms are impregnated over and over again, so these poor animals suffer the majority of their lives in this cruel and extreme confinement.

The gestation crates also prevent mother pigs from interacting in a natural way with their piglets. In nature, pigs create a nest to birth their babies and spend the first few months of the piglets’ lives nursing, playing, and teaching them how to forage and groom. Gestation crates prevent this maternal behavior and cause psychological harm as well as physical harm to the females confined within them. Factory farming operations treat animals as mere commodities, but pigs are intelligent, sentient beings, and gestation crates only increase their suffering.

The pork industry has repeatedly challenged states’ extreme confinement bans in court, but the animal welfare laws have been upheld, all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Sneaking the unpopular, “Save Our Bacon Act” into the Farm Bill is Big Ag’s latest effort to disregard the will of voters and undermine public actions to protect farm animals.