Aaron Cohen: The Farm Bill, The EATS Act and What You Need to Know

“I call the act a poison pill, because really, what it is, is if it ever gets inserted into the farm bill or if it gets passed on its own, it prevents all of the animal centered organizations, all the environmental organizations, all the family farm and rural community organizations that push back against factory farming. It wipes out all of the progress that they've made.”

Aaron Cohen is the senior director of advocacy at Farm Sanctuary. I asked Aaron to come on the show because I wanted to talk about some important things happening in our government right now. Starting with the delayed passage of the Farm Bill.

The Farm Bill covers laws that govern food and farming and has a tremendous impact on farming livlihoods, how food is grown, and what kinds of food are grown. 

A group of Congressional lawmakers are pushing to include the Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression (EATS) Act as part of the 2023 Farm Bill. If passed, the EATS Act would have serious implications for animal welfare and every ounce of progress that the animal protection movement has made against factory farming. It could also have a huge effect on farmer well-being, worker safety, the spread of zoonotic diseases and pollution. It’d be disastrous.