Hi there,

It’s true! Pigs have well-developed memories and problem solving skills, and a knack for nuanced communication. Studies have also shown that pigs have the cognitive capacity of a 3-year-old child, and they feel a range of emotions just like you and me.

But in our broken food system, pigs suffer some of the worst abuse.

The meat industry treats female pigs—or sows—like breeding machines. On factory farms, sows are artificially inseminated and confined in cold metal gestation crates so small they can’t even turn around. Pregnant pigs will remain in these tiny, filthy cages for months on end—until their piglets are born. Afterward, these mothers are forced to watch helplessly as their babies are taken away from them, usually within weeks, and mutilated before their eyes.

That process repeats again and again. For far too many sows, it’s the only reality they’ll ever know.

You’d think there’d be a law to protect pigs from spending their lives in a cage. Within California at least, you’d be right. Proposition 12, considered the strongest animal protection law in the world, prohibits the sale of products in California that come from the most abusive caging systems—like gestation crates.

It’s almost predictable, then, that the pig industry is fighting back on Proposition 12. But the industry’s resistance to animal welfare improvements isn’t new.

From trying to unravel critical animal welfare laws to refusing to eradicate the cruelest practices in corporate supply chains, we’ve seen this industry continually push back against efforts to meaningfully reduce the suffering of these smart, feeling beings.

The pig industry has been quietly causing tremendous pain to animals for too long. I see it—and I know you do, too. I also know that our movement is more powerful than an industry built on abuse. And I believe that together, you and I can make a difference.

This year, World Farm Animals Day—on October 2—is more important than ever. Let’s send a powerful message that animals deserve better than life in a cage—and convince more corporations to stop profiting from extreme animal abuse.

Will you help by making a gift today?

For the animals,

P.S. Pigs and other animals raised in factory farms endure some of the worst abuse in our broken food system—and it has to stop. Your gift can make a difference. Will you join us?