Back in 2007, an undercover investigator for the Humane Society of the United States wormed his way into an Iowa egg-production facility owned by Rose Acre Farms and brought back disturbing video. It showed hens packed into small wire battery cages, some dead, some dead long enough to be mummified.
Images like those helped open the public's eyes to the grim conditions under which food-industry animals were raised and led to industry push-back. In Iowa, the nation's largest egg-producing state, the 2012 Ag-Gag law made it a crime to get into an agricultural production facility under false pretenses to gather evidence.
"That expose had not endeared me or (the Humane Society) to (Rose Acre owner Marcus) Rust, and his deputies did plenty of bare-knuckled counter-punching after we broke the news of our investigation," writes Humane Society President Wayne Pacelle in his book, "The Humane Economy," which came out in April.
So Rust, whose company is the second largest in the egg business, was one of the last people Pacelle would have expected to get a friendly call from seven years later. But that's what happened, with Rust telling Pacelle he planned to convert all his production facilities to cage-free and invited him to visit his Indiana headquarters to see the model.
Pacelle visited and was pleased to see a warehouse with no cages, just open shelves, where the birds could walk, fly and perch. This was the same Rust who had previously donated half a million dollars to a campaign to defeat California's Proposition 2 voter referendum banning battery cages. But the referendum passed, taking effect last year. Not only must eggs produced in California be laid by hens free from cages, but eggs imported into California from other states must also meet the same requirements. Rust could see the writing on the wall.
This is one of the most hopeful stories I've heard in a long time. It's a remarkable case of consumer values forcing animal-welfare standards to evolve in a more humane direction, and the Humane Society deserves much of the credit for putting the issue on the front burner. Pacelle also notes the role of "innovators, documentary makers, authors, science and the rising tide of consciousness." In a recent phone interview, he said, "In the last 25 years, we moved the debate from 'Do animals suffer?' to acknowledging they have complex emotional lives."
The results, as his book documents, have been great change not just in the food industry but also in the use of animals in fashion, cosmetics, trophy hunting, circus and scientific testing. Public revulsion over a hunter from Minnesota luring a lion in Zimbabwe named Cecil to its death for its head helped prompt 45 airlines to refuse to carry parts of lions and other trophy animals. Several major fashion designers are going fur-free. The biggest circus has discontinued elephant acts. And President Barack Obama recently signed an amendment to the Toxic Substances Control Act, with a provision exempting animals from chemical testing.
But changes in the food industry are the biggest; 175 retailers, including Wal-Mart, McDonald's, Taco Bell and IHOP have agreed to go cage-free in the next 10 years, according to Pacelle. "Iowa in particular felt the shock, given that it's the top egg-producing state, with sixty million hens," wrote Pacelle in his book. About 92 percent of the 15 billion eggs laid in Iowa are exported out of state, according to Katie Nola, director of consumer affairs for the Iowa Egg Council and Poultry Association.
"The consumer is calling this, but it will be costly," said Nola, who estimates it will cost $35 to $40 per hen to eliminate cages.
Pacelle contends the additional production costs will be around 12 cents a carton, and the hens will be healthier and live longer. People who eat eggs will also be healthier, he said, noting the 2010 salmonella outbreak that forced the recall of 500 million eggs from the former DeCoster Farms in Iowa. Shortly after the recall, Pacelle got to tour its 93-building facility, each housing 150,000 hens.
"I came away convinced that this entire disgraceful system of conventional egg production had to change," he wrote. He told me the company and others have "subordinated animal welfare concerns to an attempt to be efficient."
I asked Nola which of Iowa's egg producers are cage-free. She said companies don't make that public, but most of the 34 use cages. But she said the subject is "on everybody's radar right now, because that's where the industry is going."
Rembrandt Foods, the nation's third largest egg producer, said last fall that it was moving toward raising its birds in a cage-free environment. It did not give a timeline for the change.
It took some prodding, but businessmen like Rust and Dave Retting, the CEO of Rembrandt, have realized they can raise animals humanely and still do a good business. "Rembrandt had been a notorious name in our quarters because it kept millions of hens in forty-square-inch allotments," Pacelle wrote.
With its tireless advocacy, which has used public embarrassment, the bully pulpit and behind-the-scenes negotiations, the Humane Society has been a thorn in the side of many businesses. But its demands are entirely reasonable. It isn't asking people to stop eating meat or companies to stop producing it. What it has done is prick our consciences about something many preferred not to think about: that animals feel fear, pain, loyalty and a range of other emotions, and it is natural to feel compassion for them and revulsion over their mistreatment.
Pacelle and his colleagues have been gambling on the empathy of humans to demand change. They were right.