Farm Bill: Remove Mink-Fur-Farm Subsidy and Keep Out Save Our Bacon Act

The Farm Bill provides funding to support agricultural operations and must be passed every five years or extended to maintain the funding.

The 2026 Farm Bill (H.R. 7567, The Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026) contains a lot, including some very bad provisions.

The Farm Bill passed the House (224-200) in April and recently passed the Senate Committee on Agriculture. Now the Senate version of the bill, S. 5526, The Agricultural Act of 2026, must pass by a simple majority in the Senate.

Mink Fur Farming Subsidy:

The Senate Committee on Agriculture kept language that would supply federal funding for fur farming.

Section 3204(b)(1)(A) would repeal a law that prevented federal funds from supporting the U.S. Mink Export Development Council or any mink-industry trade association. This section would thus supply more funds to support mink fur farm operations. With more fur farming, more mink will suffer from poor conditions and cruelty inherent to modern fur farms. For example, mink farmed for their fur are kept in long rows of tiny wire mesh cages with wire mesh floors so that their feces and urine fall through the bars.

Mink are also solitary and territorial creatures who would naturally spend much of their time in water. On fur farms, however, they live in barren cages, next to one another, unable to engage in natural behaviors, such as swimming and foraging. This causes the mink to display stereotypic, abnormal behaviors such as pacing, gnawing at the cage bars, self-mutilation, and even cannibalism.

The animals meet their end through gassing, decompression chambers, neck-snapping, or electrocution through the mouth and anus.

Save Our Bacon Act:

The Senate Committee on Agriculture removed Section 12006, the Save Our Bacon Act language, from the Farm Bill. 

Section 12006 of the Farm Bill, which is nearly identical to that of the Save Our Bacon Act, would prevent states from forbidding the sale of meat derived from farmed animals confined in cruel conditions.

This is in direct response to California's Prop. 12, which prohibits cruel confinement of farmed animals. This precedent would allow other states to pass similar laws that ensure farmed animals are not cruelly confined.

In 2018, California voters approved Proposition 12 (Prop. 12) to require better confinement standards for certain farmed animals, prohibiting the sale of meat from a calf raised for veal, breeding pig, or egg-laying hen confined in a cruel manner. Cruel confinement is defined as that which prevents the animal from lying down, standing up, fully extending its limbs, or turning around freely at any time.

In 2026, Rep. Glenn Thompson introduced the new Farm Bill, the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026, H.R. 7567, which included Section 12006, containing nearly identical language to that of the Save Our Bacon Act: he effectively embedded the Save Our Bacon Act within the Farm Bill. Section 12006 of the Farm Bill would also prohibit any state from requiring out-of-state meat producers to ensure farmed animals are not cruelly confined.

Although the Senate Committee on Agriculture removed Section 12006, the Save Our Bacon Act, the Farm Bill must still pass the Senate. Theoretically, the Senate could reincorporate the Save Our Bacon Act language into the Farm Bill. 

Take action today!

Please use the template letter below and urge your Senators to Keep the Save Our Bacon Act and Section 3204(b)(1)(A) OUT of the Farm Bill.