Over the past year, thanks to our incredible supporters, we’ve been able to achieve so much for farm animals across the world. Here are just some of our highlights:
• Our ground-breaking study demonstrated that we don’t need factory farming to feed the world.
• 60,000 calves were saved from being shot at birth or exported in the year to May 2009, as a result of our partnership with the food and farming industry.
• Over 20 million hens are now living a cage-free life thanks to the policies of our Good Egg Award winners…
• …Sainsbury’s, the UK’s third-largest supermarket, went cage-free on its shell eggs a year earlier than promised…
• …and the 50th UK council went cage-free on its egg procurement.
• The Chicken Out! Campaign, led by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Compassion, now has over 167,800 supporters.
• Following pressure from supporters of Compassion and Chicken Out!, Defra announced that it won’t be making life even worse for meat chickens by increasing maximum stocking densities to levels permitted in Europe.
• Over 40% of MPs supported our parliamentary motion calling for higher welfare standards and more honest labelling on chicken meat, putting it in the top 5 of MPs’ concerns.
• On pigs, we prompted the European Commission to focus on enforcement of the ban on routine tail-docking following our investigation which showed the majority of the European industry is still ignoring the ban on this serious mutilation.
• Our complaint to the ASA resulted in adverts by the pork industry being banned for misleading the public over claims of “very high welfare standards”…
• …and our ad on the tooth-clipping of piglets prompted a leading industry journal to discourage this painful mutilation.
• Celtic Link announced that they would cease to carry live animal exports on their ferries following a barrage of letters from Compassion supporters and protests at Portsmouth docks.
• Campaigning by our supporters helped bring the world’s attention to the horrendous slaughter of an estimated 160,000 pigs in Egypt, spurred the world’s animal health organisation (OIE) into action, and put pressure on the Egyptian government for a change in welfare legislation.
• Our lobbying at the European Parliament helped achieve an overwhelming majority vote against cloning of farm animals for food.
• Our historic achievement in getting animals recognised as sentient beings in Europe gained greater weight this year when it became enshrined in a dedicated ‘Article’ within The Lisbon Treaty.
• Sales of free-range and higher welfare food continued to rise, despite the recession.
You made all this possible. It’s only thanks to the dedication and generosity of our supporters like you that we can bring about real change for millions of farm animals.
Thank you for joining us in our quest to make factory farming a thing of the past.
Thank you for being part of the organisation that gets things done.
