ABSTRACT
Compassion in World Farming is working with kindred societies throughout the European Union to ensure that the public and political condemnation of battery cages is consolidated in an urgent phase-out of this system that the review process of the Battery Hens Directive has finally begun. The public campaign, aimed at raising general awareness, stimulating public concern and encouraging people to use their power as consumers to help bring about change. In the UK, intensive agriculture is increasingly coming under fire from environmentalists, animal welfarists and an ever more questioning general public. People as citizens are instinctively offended in moral terms by the way animals are treated on factory farms, as the response to the veal crate shows. Popular concern for the welfare of farm animals has already resulted in some legislative change. The new direction for European agriculture should recognize the sentiency and intrinsic value of farm animals, protect the environment and maintain rural communities.
