Animal Welfare Overhaul on Massachusetts Ballot

The extreme confinement of egg-laying chickens, mother pigs, and baby male calves in veal crates will be illegal by 2022 on Massachusetts farms if humane voters in the Bay State make their voices heard in this November’s election. To get this anti-cruelty measure on the ballot, a diverse coalition of animal protection and environmental groups organized more than 1,000 volunteers to gather approximately 190,000 signatures—more than three times the number required by the petition process. Ten states, from California to Maine, have already passed laws to phase out battery cages, gestation crates, or veal crates—or all three—through ballot measures or legislation. Furthermore, dozens of the world’s largest restaurant chains, supermarkets, food manufacturers, and food-service providers have also committed to no longer purchasing products from farms that use these cruel confinement systems.