Big Agriculture skirts the law and the Constitution to fight animal welfare 

Alabama’s ban on the sale of cultivated meat goes into effect this month, with violators facing a $500 fine and up to three months in jail. It’s a stunningly anti-free market sop to the in-state meat industry and a likely violation of the Interstate Commerce Act, which prohibits states from unduly burdening the free flow of commerce across state lines.

Yet, it’s nothing new for big agricultural interests in their ongoing fight against pro-animal products and compassionate welfare reforms. In the battle against so-called “activists,” the anti-animal lobby regularly skirts the law — and the Constitution. 

Take a recent development out of North Carolina. Back in 2015, the general assembly passed the highly punitive Property Protection Act, which banned employees from taking videos inside the workplace.

It was an “Ag Gag” law, dressed up in the guise of property rights, intended to prevent journalists and undercover investigators from documenting animal abuse and cruelty in the Tar Heel State’s factory farms. And it was thoroughly unconstitutional, as all such “Ag Gag” laws tend to be. 

A federal district court in North Carolina ruled against the state, declaring the law a content-based restriction on speech. Then, in 2023, the Fourth Circuit upheld the lower court’s ruling, writing it agrees “that an employer could freely choose to deny entry to journalists who seek to secretly record its inner workings,” but “it does not follow that a State can create ‘new categories of unprotected speech’ to punish those journalists.” 

“The First Amendment limits the government; the government does not limit the First Amendment,” it concludes.

But “Ag Gag” laws are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the legally dubious maneuverings of governments and industry stakeholders who would rather weaponize the law than reckon with progress. 

This summer, the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled against the National Institutes of Health, which had taken to targeting, blocking or hiding online comments critical of its role in funding animal testing research. 

Governments should “tread carefully when enforcing any speech restriction to ensure it is not viewpoint discriminatory and does not inappropriately censor criticism or exposure of government actions,” the court wrote of NIH’s conduct, which had entailed censoring keywords like “torture,” “testing,” “animal” and even “PETA.” 

Such legally dubious conduct goes far beyond the First Amendment, however.

The Humane Society of the United States and other animal welfare groups recently filed a complaint with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission against meat producer JBS, owner of Pilgrim’s Pride. The complaint alleges that the agricultural goliath’s SEC filings misled prospective investors regarding its animal welfare and sustainability standards. That is to say nothing of widespread, well-founded and bipartisan allegations of the company’s engagement in an “international bribery corruption scheme.” JBS has since slowed its roll on a prospective IPO. 

Then there are commodity checkoff programs, the government-sponsored agricultural promotion mechanisms that have come under well-deserved scrutiny for corruption and illegal collusion with outside trade groups. 

Checkoff programs refer to generic agricultural marketing programs — responsible for slogans like “Got Milk?” — into which farmers large and small are forced to pay. They have become troughs of financial wrongdoing and unlawful influence efforts. 

Despite clear legal prohibitions, D.C. lobbying leviathans like the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association have repeatedly used “checkoff” dollars to influence government policy and action in support of their Big Ag allies. It’s no wonder that a bipartisan coalition of senators, including Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.), have worked for years to reform this broken system.

Still, when it comes to legal overreach, nothing comes close to the Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression (EATS) Act, currently under consideration for inclusion in the new Farm Bill. The legislation would create a private right of action against states purportedly in violation of interstate commerce laws, potentially nullifying more than 1,000 state-level agriculture laws that support our economies and protect our people. 

It’s a cynical and dangerous effort to overturn laws like California’s Proposition 12, which sets animal welfare standards for certain animal products sold in the state. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many agricultural interests aren’t thrilled about the Golden State’s requirement that pork sold within its borders must come from pigs that have enough room to turn around. More space means less money, after all. 

Anti-reformists have dressed EATS up in all the right language (see: interstate commerce). But what differentiates California’s law from Alabama’s is that every single state in the union has laws regulating agricultural products sold there. Alabama’s prohibition on cultivated meat bans an entire category of product. 

We can only hope lawsuits against Alabama’s ban on humane meat alternatives are successful in preventing the state from undermining constitutional commerce protections — but it’s far from the only fight animal welfare supporters face. They and others who believe in the rule of law must stay vigilant. 

As we’ve seen, animal welfare opponents will go to any length to prop up their antiquated business practices — to the limits of the law and well beyond. 

John Cleveland is a senior fellow at Wilberforce Institute.