Rejoicing over a slew of Ballot Initiative victories for animal rights groups, Wayne Pacelle, vice president and chief legislative and political strategist for the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) called Florida’s passage of a ban on gestation confinement for sows “truly historic.” The measure, Amendment 10 on Tuesday’s ballot, won voter support by a margin of 55% to 45%.

Pacelle characterized the measure as setting a “new standard for the humane treatment of farm animals.” Pacelle’s choice of words – “historic” and “new standard” – was carefully and artfully selected. HSUS and its colleagues in pushing for the ballot ban aimed at Florida’s hog farmers were, in fact, creating a precedent aimed at major pork producing states. According to press accounts, hog farming in Florida is barely a cottage industry and only two farms in that state use the isolation stalls proscribed by the ballot question.

Florida served as a voter laboratory to test the persuasiveness of various arguments aimed at the spectrum of farm animal husbandry, not solely at hog farming. Pacelle and HSUS’ statement issued after Florida vote counters tallied the win for the animal rights community used terms such as “farm animals” and “confining animals on factory farms” but did not reference “pigs” or “sows” until the very end of the press release in summarizing the win. The issue of “confining” farm animals – whether beef, pork, poultry, or even farmed fish – will resurface in NGO campaigns against farming and farmers.

The nation’s agriculture interests will see themselves and similar descriptors about their livestock raising techniques brought before the press, legislatures, and the courts.

Biomedical researchers working with laboratory animals understand the unctuous “compassion” employed by animal rights groups in beseeching politicians for relief from the suffering of “confined” animals. The quality of life for the animals arguably may be marginally more appealing to human perceptions, but the increased costs and bureaucratically near-impossible regulations associated with the ability of researchers to conduct life saving research become economically and administratively intolerable.

Farmers faced with the burden of the “new standards” envisioned by HSUS and other animal rights groups including PETA are likely to choose other work. And that is precisely the object of the Florida political exercise.