Hey readers,
It's Kenny here. The world's second-largest fur producer is saying goodbye to fur. On Tuesday, Poland passed a law to phase out fur farms over the next eight years — a major blow to the global fur industry. In 2023, fur farmers in the Central European nation killed some 3 million foxes, minks, raccoon dogs, and chinchillas for coats and trim, accounting for about one out of every seven animals in the international fur trade. The wild animals are confined in small wire-bottom cages for months — in facilities that resemble the kind of factory farms where animals are raised for meat — until they're killed via carbon dioxide gassing or anal electrocution. Their pelts are then shipped around the world to clothing manufacturers and fashion houses. A recent poll found that over two-thirds of Poles support a fur farm ban. "This is a decision that Poles have awaited for many years," Poland's President Karol Nawrocki said in a video posted on X. "A decision that reflects our compassion, our civilizational maturity, and our respect for all living creatures." Since the 1980s, animal activists around the world have campaigned against fur farming. Progress was slow going for decades but accelerated in the mid-2010s, with the number of animals farmed for fur falling from 140 million in 2014 to 20.5 million in 2024. |
That progress came about through a combination of country-level bans; protests against major fashion houses and retailers; and economic challenges in China and Russia, the biggest fur buyers. Poland's new law should only speed up that momentum. How Polish activists — and rural citizens — fought the fur industry and won Poland's fur farm ban is a case study in persistence, given it was activists' seventh attempt to pass such a law. It's also a case study in coalition building. While activists in the country have protested against fur farms for decades, their campaign picked up speed in 2012 when the advocacy group Otwarte Klatki — Polish for "Open Cages" — released a sprawling investigation into more than 50 fur farms, including some owned by titans of the country's fur industry. The investigation revealed animals packed tightly into small, filthy cages; animals suffering from severe injuries; dead animals rotting in cages with living ones (and lots and lots of maggots); and animals pacing in their cages and repeatedly biting the sides of their enclosures (signs of stress and frustration). More investigations by Otwarte Klatki — and the animal rights group Viva! Poland — followed, along with protests, campaigns pressuring retailers to ditch fur, and support from celebrities and politicians. Activists also found allies in the countryside where the fur farms are located. Bigger fur farms are "a great nuisance," Kirsty Henderson, president of the European animal protection group Anima International, told me over email. "The smell is unbearable, the quality of life decreases, and property values drop." According to Henderson, rural activists have held 180 protests — around one per month on average — since the early 2010s. And as the global fur industry collapsed over the last decade, so did Poland's, which weakened the economic argument to keep fur farms open. The law will provide severance for farmworkers and owners, with higher payments to operators who shut down sooner. "It's obviously disappointing news but fur farming is very strong still in a number of European countries and our world leading fur is used by top fashion brands," Jyrki Sura, a program director at the International Fur Federation, told me in an email. The ripple effect of Poland's big move Poland's fur farm ban alone is a big deal, but its impact could ripple across the entire continent. In 2023, animal welfare activists gathered 1.5 million signatures from European Union citizens in support of an EU-wide fur-farming ban. That required the European Commission — the EU's executive branch — to formally consider and respond to the proposal. It's still weighing a ban, which has faced opposition from some politicians in Poland, Finland, and Greece. But that opposition should weaken now that Poland has proactively banned fur farming within its own borders. "If the continent's biggest producer can ban this cruel practice, there is no reason the European Union cannot do the same," Henderson of Anima International told me. "It's time for Brussels to end the patchwork approach and introduce comprehensive legislation that reflects the clear will of European citizens." While most industrialized forms of animal exploitation have only grown in recent decades, Poland's ban and other recent developments in the campaign against fur farming shows progress is possible. Just this week, New York Fashion Week announced it will not allow fur on runways, with the CEO of the organization that plans the annual event stating that he "hopes to inspire American designers to think more deeply about the fashion industry's impact on animals." The future, it's now clear, is fur-free. It's just a matter of how soon that future arrives. |
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| Kenny Torrella Senior reporter |
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| | Kenny Torrella Senior reporter |
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Why the American dream stalled — and how to restart it. |
I've spent a lot of the past year editing stories about things that feel like they're falling apart in America: housing, health care, child care, higher ed, you name it. But when you zoom out, there's a deeper, less vibes-y explanation for why so much feels unaffordable and precarious: For decades, the American economy just hasn't been growing fast enough in the ways that matter for ordinary people's living standards. That's why Vox launched "The Case for Growth," a multiplatform series — made possible by a grant from Arnold Ventures — that makes the argument that if you care about affordability, inequality, and the future of American power, you have to care about economic growth. Growth doesn't have to be as a totemic number politicians brag about, but a concrete project that makes it easier to build housing, deploy cheap energy, raise productivity, and get more scientific and technological progress into the real world. We'll explore why so much of the country turned against growth in past decades, and how to envision a pro-growth agenda that's compatible with climate goals and can get the buy-in of the American people. The core question we're trying to answer is simple: What would it look like to take growth seriously again, not just for Wall Street, but for the people who feel like the country has quietly put the brakes on their futures? Follow it here.
—Bryan Walsh, senior editorial director |
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CAN'T STOP THINKING ABOUT... |
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| Can't Stop Thinking About with Shayna Korol
Title: Future Perfect fellow
What I cover: Emerging science and tech, societal risks, diseases and how we treat them
What I'm daydreaming about: These New Zealand hiking trails |
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Andrew Hoggard, New Zealand's minister for biosecurity and food safety and associate minister of agriculture and animal welfare, thinks that vegans are coming for his job. A bit of backstory: Five years ago, the New Zealand High Court declared the pig crates that hold sows and their litters to be in violation of the Animal Welfare Act, and required that they be phased out by December 2025. Hoggard introduced a bill that would push back that deadline to December 2035, giving pig farmers another decade to make adjustments. So New Zealand animal rights charity SAFE (Save Animals From Exploitation) called for him to step down from his animal welfare portfolio. Hoggard is a dairy farmer, and before joining Parliament, he led a farming lobby called Federated Farmers and served on the International Dairy Board. "His stated goal when he entered parliament in November 2023 was to 'make farmers' lives easier,'" SAFE wrote. "Yet he now serves as the minister responsible for animal welfare — despite being deeply entangled with the very industries that profit from animal exploitation." Shots fired. "Well, I think SAFE wouldn't be happy unless there was a vegan in the role who was totally opposed to farming effectively," Hoggard told the press. "They want an end to people owning pets, people being able to use animals for agriculture, and all the rest of it." SAFE rejects all of the accusations. "Dietary preferences have nothing to do with it... I think he was just deflecting from his own poor decision-making," Debra Ashton, CEO of SAFE, told The Post. "What we're dealing with is the way animals are being farmed and asking that they be respected and their conditions improved." According to Ashton, Hoggard has a history of ignoring animal welfare experts in favor of advancing farmers' interests.
And yeah, the guy's name is Hoggard. Nominative determinism — the idea that your name determines your path in life — strikes again. I haven't seen a case like this since I interviewed a doctor with the surname Doctor for my last piece. |
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⭐ ONE WAY TO DO GOOD THIS WEEK |
Several cyclones tore through South and Southeast Asia this past week, causing catastrophic flooding and landslides that have killed at least 1,350 people and displaced millions. Since Cyclone Ditwah made landfall on November 28, Sri Lanka has been coping with what the country's president has described as the "most challenging natural disaster" in its history, with extensive damage to the country's infrastructure, food supply chains, and clean water access. You can help Sri Lanka in the long road to recovery and resilience ahead. The Center for Disaster Philanthropy is directing funds to organizations at the frontlines of that long-term recovery through its Global Recovery Fund. The government of Sri Lanka is also accepting donations for emergency food, water, and other relief efforts. —Sara Herschander, Future Perfect fellow |
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Today's edition was edited and produced by Izzie Ramirez. We'll see you next week. |
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