Animal welfare legislation in most countries has significant gaps that leave billions of farm animals without meaningful protection from routine practices causing suffering.
The legislative gap in farm animal welfare protection means that practices causing significant suffering — debeaking, tail docking, battery cages, gestation crates — are legal despite being prohibited in equivalent contexts for non-farm animals. Closing this gap requires legislative reform, corporate commitment campaigns, and consumer pressure. Legislative advocacy is one of the highest-leverage tools for animal welfare improvement given the scale of benefit from policy change.