Certified Humane: Adele Douglass

Adele Douglass, founder and executive director of Humane Farm Animal Care (HFAC), began her work over 20 years ago in Representative Bill Green’s (NY) office, where she was in charge of animal welfare issues. She went on to become the American Humane Association’s director of public policy, lobbying on behalf of two of the nation’s most vulnerable populations: animals and children.

In 1998, Douglass traveled to Europe to see for herself how farms in the U.K. were successfully implementing humane handling practices. While there, she met with representatives of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and learned about their Freedom Foods program, which successfully marketed the meat, poultry, eggs and dairy products of animals raised under humane care standards. Rather than relying on the often slow legal process to effect change for farm animals, Douglass immediately saw how such a program in the United States would enable consumers to vote with their wallets for more humane production practices.

Douglass initiated the concept of humane certification for farm animal products in the United States with her launch of the Free Farmed program for Farm Animal Services. In 2003, she founded HFAC, the only nonprofit organization in the United States to enforce a humane labeling program for animals from birth through slaughter. In 2007, only four years after the program began, the standards implemented by HFAC helped over 26 million farm animals to be raised under humane conditions. Douglass directs all Humane Farm Animal Care programs and activities.

In 2006, in honor of her more than 25 years of advocacy for children and animals’ rights, the ASPCA granted Douglass our Lifetime Achievement Award.