Petition: Urge USDA to Stop Its Plans to Increase Slaughterhouse Line Speeds

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s Food Safety and Inspection Service has long ignored public concern over dangerously high slaughterhouse line speeds, and is currently proposing to increase line speeds for slaughtering chickens and turkeys and to eliminate line speed regulation in pig slaughterhouses altogether.

The Animal Legal Defense Fund is working with coalition partners and will submit detailed comments urging the USDA to reverse these plans due to harms these rule changes will cause to animal welfare, food safety, public health, worker safety, and the environment.

Higher line speeds will make it impossible for slaughterhouses to comply with humane handling and food safety requirements. The changes would increase incidents in which animals are not properly stunned as required by law, leaving them fully conscious when they are slaughtered.

Deregulating line speeds would also harm consumers because more meat contaminated with bacteria could get past inspectors, causing more illness and even death. Slaughterhouse workers, who already have one of the most notoriously dangerous jobs in the country, would be put at an even greater risk of injury. Increased line speeds would also mean more animals are killed, creating more pollution — not just at the slaughterhouse, but at every step of production.

Sign the petition below to say NO to the USDA’s dangerous plans to increase slaughterhouse line speeds. Your name, along with thousands of other supporters, will be added to ALDF’s official comments to these proposed government regulations.

Petition:

As an animal advocate, and a supporter of the Animal Legal Defense Fund, I care about the well-being of animals, consumers, workers, and the environment.

Dangerously high lines speeds in U.S. slaughterhouses are already compromising animal welfare and worker, consumer, and environmental safety. Higher line speeds will make it impossible for slaughterhouses to comply with humane handling and food safety requirements.

I am joining the Animal Legal Defense Fund to say NO to the USDA’s proposal to increase line speeds for slaughtering chickens and turkeys, and urge the government agency to abandon its plan to eliminate line speed regulation in pig slaughterhouses.

While ALDF has already submitted this petition and signatures may no longer be included on any public document, your information and support will be used in our ongoing campaign to highlight the growing public concern around this important issue.

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