To the Editor:
After reading the article, Bird Flu Cases Persist Across New Jersey: What Hopewell Valley Residents Should Know, by Parisa Burton, it’s clear that bird flu cases continue to impact communities across New Jersey — including Hopewell Valley — and highlights the urgent need to address how animal welfare, public health, and local laws are all deeply connected.
Diseases like avian flu don’t just threaten animal populations; they are a clear warning of what happens when industrial agriculture prioritizes profits over safety, transparency, and humane treatment. This is why I’m deeply concerned about a new bill being introduced in the U.S. Senate: the Food Security and Farm Protection Act, which would strip states of the ability to set their own agricultural and food safety standards. If the bill passes, states will be forced to accept agricultural products from anywhere in the country, regardless of how inhumanely or unsafely those products were produced. Federal standards are already incredibly weak and poorly enforced. They permit conditions where pigs are confined in crates so small, they can’t turn around, chickens are packed into spaces smaller than a piece of paper, and veal calves are in cages that deprive them of movement and social interaction. The dangers don’t stop at animal welfare. The new bill could also be detrimental to our environment because it could weaken state laws on pesticide use, water quality, and emissions, jeopardizing the environment and human health, and thus increasing the risk of future disease outbreaks like bird flu.
If we want to protect our communities, our food, our environment, and public health, we must demand that our lawmakers oppose this bill. New Jersey residents- and people across the country should not have to question if food products meet their values or safety standards.
Sincerely,
Trisha Choudhary
