Delivered from the front steps of the New Jersey state capitol during Farm Sanctuary's Rally Against Factory Farming in Trenton, NJ on April 8, 2002

Thank you all for caring about animals, and thank you for attending this Rally Against Factory Farming. Today, we speak out against the intolerable suffering endured by animals who are exploited for meat, milk and eggs.

Farming has changed drastically in recent decades. Farms are getting larger, and animals are increasingly being treated like production units, instead of like living, feeling animals. They are confined in cages and crates so small that they cannot walk, turn around, or even lay down comfortably. These conditions make it impossible for the animals to engage in basic natural behaviors, causing both physical and psychological disorders.

In addition to causing animal suffering, factory farms threaten human health, pollute the environment, and destroy rural communities.

In order to keep animals alive in stressful factory farm conditions, agribusiness depends on the extensive use of drugs and this leads to the development of virulent pathogens. As a result, when humans are infected, formerly life saving antibiotics are rendered useless. Antibiotic resistance has spread so widely, that anti-biotic resistant bacteria has even been found in groundwater down stream from industrialized farms.

When thousands, or even millions, of animals are crowded into factory farm warehouses, they produce too much waste to be absorbed by the environment. The waste is commonly stored in lagoons or other temporary holding areas, and it inevitably escapes into the environment, polluting rivers and other precious natural resources. Factory farms also decrease property values - creating unpleasant, sometimes unbearable, living conditions for their neighbors.

Factory farming systems are bad for everybody - humans, animals, and the environment. The conditions are so cruel that they have been outlawed in Europe. It is now time to ban them in the United States as well.

Citizens in New Jersey have a unique opportunity to lead our nation in improving the treatment of farm animals. This is the only state with a law that requires the development of standards for the humane treatment of farm animals. And, since certain farming practices are clearly inhumane, they cannot be allowed under New Jersey law.

The state's humane standards were supposed to be completed in 1996, but they remain unfinished today. However, under the new Governor, the funding necessary to produce the humane standards is finally available, and they are now being drafted by the state Department of Agriculture.

So far, the Department has received 30,000 comments from concerned citizens, organizations, legislators, and even farmers urging that it produce meaningful humane standards.

The vast majority of citizens oppose inhumane farming practices. People are appalled to learn that young calves are taken from their mothers and chained by the neck in crates for their entire lives to produce veal. The animals are fed an all liquid milk-substitute which is deficient in iron and fiber in order to produce anemia and the pale colored flesh sold as veal. New Jersey has a unique opportunity, and an obligation, to prohibit such cruelty.

For too long, farm animals have suffered out of public view, and outside of public concern. Today, we draw attention to factory farming cruelty, and we call on the New Jersey Department of Agriculture to fulfill its legislative mandate and to enact meaningful standards which reflect popular sentiments.

Like all animals, farm animals have feelings and they deserve to be protected from cruelty. As a civilized nation, we have an ethical obligation to recognize farm animals as sentient beings and to prevent their suffering.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you for caring and for helping to make a difference.