In 1995, the New Jersey State Legislature mandated that the New Jersey Department of Agriculture develop and adopt regulations governing the minimum standards of humane raising, keeping, care, treatment, marketing and sale of domestic livestock and poultry. Working with industry, New Jersey Farm Bureau, veterinarians, Rutgers University, and the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station, New Jersey wrote and passed N.J.A.C. 2:8, which became the first regulations of these kind in the country.

The New Jersey State Board of Agriculture and the Department of Agriculture commit themselves to ongoing review of scientific literature, veterinary school, land grant college, and agricultural extension curricula, and other pertinent scientific studies to ensure that New Jersey’s standards continue to reflect practices supported by science and as informed by animal welfare concerns.

Adoption of the Humane Standards Regulation has provided livestock owners with a clear understanding of their responsibilities as to the raising, keeping, care, treatment, marketing and sale of their animals. Further, these rules have provided law enforcement authorities and the State and county S.P.C.A.s with appropriate guidance as to standards for humane treatment. As those agencies enforce the State’s animal cruelty laws, their cooperation with the Department of Agriculture has enhanced the ability of the State to ensure that diseases (or threats of diseases) are identified quickly and that appropriate action has been taken to prevent the transmission of those diseases which could harm the public or other animals.

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that we, the delegates to the 90th State Agricultural Convention, assembled in Atlantic City, New Jersey on January 24-26, 2005, support and recommend that New Jersey’s agricultural community embrace N.J.A.C. 2:8 of Humane Treatment of Domestic Livestock.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the delegates support the New Jersey Department of Agriculture’s ongoing review of scientific literature, veterinary school, land grant college, and agricultural extension curricula, and other pertinent scientific studies to ensure that New Jersey’s standards continue to reflect practices supported by science and as informed by animal welfare concerns.