A lobbying campaign to reduce federal subsidies to Animal Agriculture
From All-Creatures.org Animal Rights/Vegan Activist Strategies Articles Archive

FROM Lobbyists4Good.org
June 2019

We are focusing our lobbying efforts to use animal ag subsidies money to fund a pilot program that will help farmers transition from animal-based agriculture production to plant-based agriculture production.

Campaign update

This campaign has reached its initial $5,000 goal and Lobbyists 4 Good is currently lobbying to end federal subsidies for Animal Agriculture. All money raised moving forward will go towards extending the lobbying efforts that are underway. We are focusing our lobbying efforts to use animal ag subsidies money to fund a pilot program that will help farmers transition from animal-based agriculture production to plant-based agriculture production.

My Story

A sense of injustice is stirring among American citizens. We’ve learned that modern animal agriculture poisons our planet, sickens our bodies, and cruelly exploits billions of animals year after year. It’s time to end federal subsidies to animal agriculture.

Consuming animals and their by-products are unnecessary, and often contrary to human health. The American Dietetic Association recognizes that well-planned plant-based diets lower rates of heart disease and type 2 diabetes, and that plant-based diets are appropriate and healthy during all stages of life, including pregnancy and infancy. Modern industrial animal agriculture is a leading cause of greenhouse gas emissions, water pollution, and air pollution. Animal welfare laws fail to protect animals from ruthless, barbaric, and torturous treatment.

Hard working Americans do not want our tax dollars funding an unnecessary, polluting, cruel animal industry that makes us sick. Now is the time to end all federal subsidies to animal agriculture.

We will advocate for re-allocating subsidies to help farmers restructure from animal agriculture and toward growing plants intended for human consumption. Farmers would be supported in transitioning to supplying the country with vegetables, legumes, nuts, seeds, fungi, and other plant-based crops. The objective isn't to put anyone out of business. Rather, the objective is to provide incentives and support to transition to a food supply chain that is sustainable, healthy, and humane.

About Animal Agriculture

Animal agriculture poses a variety of serious problems to the health of the environment and Americans’ dietary well-being. Raising livestock is the second leading cause of climate change and generates approximately 15% of total greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, animal agriculture consumes about 70% of agricultural land and is a leading cause of deforestation, biodiversity loss, and water pollution.

Moreover, Americans’ diets include far more meat than is healthy or optimal, and such a diet is linked to higher rates of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, several major cancers, and obesity. But despite the well-documented harms of animal agriculture, the U.S. government spends billions of dollars per year subsidizing the industry, distorting the market, and incentivizing an overproduction of livestock and animal byproducts. Our society needs to shift to more sustainable diets, both for our own health and for the health of the environment. The first step toward a healthier and more sustainable national diet is to stop the use of taxpayers’ dollars to pay for the incentivization of harmful livestock byproducts.

Why lobbyists?

The animal agriculture lobby is well organized and well funded and is largely responsible for the maintenance of animal agriculture subsidies over the years. To gather momentum for an end to animal agriculture subsidies, we will need a well-connected and experienced lobbyist who can share important information about the harms of these subsidies and can refute misinformation from the animal agriculture lobby.

The issue of agricultural subsidies is generally debated every five years, as Congress needs to periodically renew the “Farm Bill” that allocates subsidy dollars. A talented lobbyist pushing to end animal agriculture subsidies will have to understand how to time his approach to best sync with a Farm Bill cycle and how to create a coalition of congressmen that can bring together ideological conservatives, who might oppose all distorting subsidies, environmentally conscious liberals, who might oppose animal agriculture subsidies in particular, and any parent who wants their children to inherit a healthy planet.

Please join me in helping to reduce the United States’ greenhouse gas emissions, the rate of diet-related diseases, and animal cruelty by opposing federal subsidies to animal agriculture. DONATE HERE.

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