More than eight billion chickens and turkeys are raised for food each year in the U.S.—that’s just about a million slaughtered every single hour of every day. The U.S. Department of Agriculture exempts poultry from the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, so these birds—which account for the vast majority of animals killed for food in America—lack even the legal protections afforded to cattle and pigs and aren’t required to be rendered insensible to pain before they’re killed.
At poultry slaughter plants, workers often haphazardly shackle live birds upside down on fast-moving lines. It’s such an imprecise process that nearly a million birds, according to the USDA, are inadequately stunned and slaughtered every year; those animals end up in “defeathering tanks”—essentially vats of scalding-hot water—while fully conscious and boiled alive. This is not only inhumane, but also poses food safety risks as the stressed birds defecate in the water baths and spread fecal matter to many other birds.
And it could get even worse for birds, workers, and consumers, as the USDA is now proposing rules that could further increase abuse and contamination. The agency, in another shameless sop to industry, wants to speed up poultry slaughter lines while at the same time removing government inspectors. Rather than the current maximum speed of slaughtering 140 chickens per minute, the USDA proposes allowing poultry companies to kill 175 of these animals each minute, despite the fact that the Government Accountability Office found USDA’s decision was based on flawed data.
Faster moving lines could mean even more birds entering the scalding tanks while conscious, which means more fecal contamination and, as the Washington Post described, more potential for animal suffering and food safety problems at poultry slaughter plants. The proposed rule would eliminate 800 federal inspectors by transferring their responsibilities to the poultry industry, and could increase foodborne illness and contamination from pathogens associated with poultry such as Salmonella and Campylobacter. It could also make labor conditions even more grueling for slaughter plant workers, many of whom already exhibit symptoms of musculoskeletal disorders, such as carpal tunnel syndrome, from too-fast line speeds.
When the Agriculture Appropriations bill comes to the House floor this week, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., plans to offer an amendment to prohibit USDA from spending any funds to implement this proposed “Modernization of Poultry Slaughter Inspection” rule. Please contact your U.S. representative today, and urge support for the DeLauro amendment to protect food safety, worker welfare, and animal welfare at poultry slaughter plants. USDA should be seeking to give birds in slaughter plants more protections, not fewer.
