March 4, 2026, 6:06 a.m. ET
Federal limits on how fast slaughterhouses are allowed to kill chickens, turkeys and pigs could soon increase under new proposals by the Department of Agriculture, a plan that the Trump administration says will reduce rising grocery costs but critics say compromises on safety.
The USDA announced in February that it was putting forth proposals it said would help reduce production costs, remove “outdated” regulations and make food processing more efficient, creating a more resilient food supply in the United States.
The proposals lay out a higher cap on the number of animals per minute or hour allowed to be killed at facilities in the United States and estimate the dollar amount that could be saved per pound of meat produced.
But increasing line speeds could lead to less safe food and less safe conditions for workers, said Jerold Mande, former deputy undersecretary for food safety at the USDA who worked in senior food safety positions during three presidential administrations. Mande told USA TODAY it’s unlikely the changes will lead to lower costs at the supermarket, and predicted that if anything, food production companies will pocket savings themselves.
“Those supporting increased line speeds are swapping their profits for our health,” said Mande, the CEO of child nutrition nonprofit Nourish Science.
USA TODAY has reached out to the USDA for comment on the proposed rule change.
What do the new USDA proposals do?
The USDA has submitted two proposals to the Federal Register to undergo a public comment period. One would affect poultry slaughter facilities, and the other pork. Both apply to facilities that participate in certain types of inspections, the New Poultry Inspection System and the New Swine Slaughter Inspection System, which covers the majority of facilities in the country.
The proposal for poultry would raise the acceptable rate of kills, measured in birds per minute, for young chickens and turkeys. For chicken, the rate would increase to 175 bpm from 140 bpm. (According to the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, 140 bpm is already slightly faster than the tempo of Michael Jackson’s “Beat It,” except each beat is a chicken being killed.) For turkeys, the rate would go to 60 bpm from 55 bpm.
According to the USDA, as of 2024 there were more than 9.4 billion young chickens slaughtered in facilities around the country; 94% of those were killed at facilities that fall under the inspection system and are subject to raising line speeds. About 79% of the 158 million turkeys slaughtered in 2024 were at facilities subject to increasing their rates. Some facilities covered by the inspection systems already received rate increase waivers, the USDA said.
Another proposal would eliminate a maximum line speed limit for swine altogether and allow facilities to set their own speeds. The limit before was 1,106 per hour. About 64.4% of 127.8 million hogs slaughtered in 2024 were at facilities covered by the proposed rate increases. Six facilities with waivers already in place were slaughtering 1,276 per hour, according to USDA.
Why does USDA want to increase speed at slaughterhouses?
The USDA has said changing the federal line speed regulations will eliminate outdated restrictions and “provide clarity and consistency” for establishments operating under the patchwork waiver system. The proposals are also designed to help lower grocery costs for Americans.
“As Secretary, my responsibility is to ensure that American families have access to affordable, safe, and abundant food,” U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said in a statement. “These updates remove outdated bottlenecks so that we can lower production costs and create greater stability in our food system.”
Mande said laws determining line speeds are old, but that doesn’t make them “outdated.” Americans are interested in increasing the safety of the food they eat, and Mande said he doesn’t see how increasing speeds can do that.
How do kill speeds affect safety?
By law, in slaughterhouses around the country, an inspector with the Food Safety and Inspection Service, part of the USDA, is present on site to inspect every single animal that is killed, Mande said. The inspectors look for any signs of illness or contamination, a demanding job at facilities that slaughter animals like chickens, which are killed at a high rate of speed.
The chickens are hung by their feet on an assembly line-style mechanical system and they speed by while a cutting wheel slits their throats, said Mande, who oversaw line speeds at the USDA.
“I can tell you, having stood on the line with the inspectors watching them do their work, at the speeds that the industry is seeking, it just flies by. You really don’t have a chance to do your job,” he said.
The USDA, however, has said the proposed line speed increases “maintain full federal oversight in every establishment and reaffirms the authority of inspectors to slow or stop operations whenever inspection cannot be performed effectively.”
Experts and advocates have also raised concerns about increased harms to workers and cruelty to the animals prior to slaughter.
“Accelerated slaughter line speeds are nothing less than a recipe for cruelty and chaos. Faster speeds risk horrific cruelty to animals and put workers at higher risk of debilitating injuries, all while compromising food safety,” the organization Humane World for Animals said in a statement.
Aside from making it more difficult for inspectors to catch problems before meat is purchased in a supermarket, a higher speed of slaughter will mean that the processing of animal carcasses will need to increase to keep up with production, Mande said. But rather than hire more workers to perform tasks like breaking down the animals into pieces, Mande said companies will likely demand their existing workers to do their jobs faster. That can lead to injuries and more opportunities for harmful bacteria to be introduced, he said.
“I’ll be surprised if the consumer sees cheaper food. This is not about an effort by the industry to sell chicken or pork for less, it’s about increasing their profits,” Mande said.
New rule likely to face challenges
The new rules aren’t final and won’t go into effect until after the administration reviews the public’s comments, according to Debbie Berkowitz, a fellow focusing on worker safety and health at Georgetown University. Berkowitz expects advocates will challenge the proposals, which has been successful in the past.
In 2018, during Trump’s first term, the USDA denied a petition by the National Chicken Council to remove the line speed limit at some slaughterhouses after receiving more than 100,000 public comments, NPR reported. After the Trump administration removed line speed limits at pork plants in 2019, a federal court later ruled the USDA acted unlawfully because it hadn’t taken into consideration the impact on worker safety, said Berkowitz, who has advocated for improved safety conditions for the nation’s food workers for more than 40 years.
As a result of that ruling, the Biden administration studied the safety impacts of line speed on workers, Berkowitz said. That study found that 81% of workers at chicken plants were at increased risk of musculoskeletal disorders and recommended that any establishment planning to increase evisceration line speed mitigate that risk by increasing staffing levels.
But Berkowitz said Trump’s USDA didn’t take those findings into account, and the latest proposal “doesn’t require the companies to do anything to mitigate against the harm that these proposals will do.” If the anticipated challenges fail, Berkowitz said the impacts could be dire.
“It’s going to harm workers and in the end, it will harm communities,” Berkowitz said.