The Rufford Maurice Laing Foundation

The Rufford Maurice Laing Foundation is an independent grant-making trust, a registered charity and a member of the Association of Charitable Foundations. The Trustees’ grant-making priorities cover four main areas:

• nature conservation projects primarily in developing countries
• overseas development projects in developing countries
• health and medicine projects in the UK
• social welfare initiatives in the UK.

In 2008, Compassion approached The Rufford Maurice Laing Foundation to support our project, “Fighting for the 2012 Barren Battery Cage Ban.”

Increasingly, more people are aware of the serious suffering that the barren battery cage inflicts on hundreds of millions of laying hens each year. Some are also aware that as the law stands, the worst barren battery cage is scheduled to be outlawed across all 27 members of the Europe Union from 2012. However, what many people are unaware of is the very real threat to this landmark legislation and that the proposed 'enriched' cages are still sub-standard in terms of animal welfare.

Nine years after achieving the initial agreement to ban the barren battery cage from 2012, there is still powerful opposition to the ban being fully implemented. Funding and support were requested from The Rufford Maurice Laing Foundation and awarded to help preserve the single biggest victory for animal welfare in recent history. If the ban were to be abandoned or even diluted in the next four years, hundreds of millions of laying hens will suffer and the global farm animal welfare movement will receive a devastating blow.

Thanks to The Rufford Maurice Laing Foundation, we were able to implement a multi-pronged approach, targeting political decision makers, the food industry and consumers.

www.rufford.org