For years, the media has been celebrating images of violent conditions in fur farms. Flickr.com, licence – CC BY 2.0 Attribution 2.0 Generic Deed, Open Cages, Author – Andrew Skowron.Animal rights organisations can yet breathe, at least for now. After years of waiting, the Sejm adopted the Act on the prohibition of animal breeding on fur. The renovation has preceded many activities, including reporting and investigation on fur farms. How did the fur manufacture respond to this project? And how certain is it to actually make a change?
Adopted by the Sejm on 17 October, the long-awaited amendment of the Act must inactive be approved by the legislature and signed by the President. In the parliamentary vote, the draft received the support of a strong majority of Members. 339 members of the Sejm jury voted in favour of passing the bill. The opposition was only 78 and 19 abstained. It may have been amazing to support the Act granted by the Polish People's Party. Of this party, only Stefan Krajewski, Minister of Agriculture and agrarian Development, voted against the amendment. He is not only the sole typical of the PSL, but besides the full ruling coalition, who opposed the amendment. It was besides supported by the majority of Members of Law and Justice, including the president of the group, Jarosław Kaczyński. After the vote, TVN's writer said that he was a strong supporter of this change and stated that "the solution is not as if I wanted it to be cut quickly, radically, but it was not possible and we so supported it." The Confederate completely opposed the draft.
The bill is written by a Green MP, Margaret Tracz.
"The adoption of the Act by specified a large majority reflects that in both Polish society and the Sejm there is simply a very large support for the ban. This is the effect of many people and organisations who have built this social awareness for years. The MP Margaret Tracz has been fighting for a ban for 10 years. This was 1 of her postulates, with which she ran for the Sejm. An example of the unsuccessful effort to introduce the alleged "A" for animals was that only reaching a compromise and an agreement beyond divisions would lead to the adoption of a ban on breeding animals for fur," said representatives of the parliamentary office liable for amending the Act.
Project shape
The bill was amended in 2024. Initially, her task provided for a transitional period of 5 years during which breeders could inactive carry out controversial activities. While working on the bill, it was extended for another 3 years. The solutions contained in the Act supply for compensation for fur farm owners. Their amount depends on the time in which the breeder ends his activity. For those who do so before 2027, the State is to pay compensation of 25% of the average yearly income. The amount of compensation decreases with a later closure of the farm. Breeders who do not close their activities until 2031 will not receive any payouts.
About the change of the transitional period and the details of the Act we asked the Open Cages Association, which deals with the protection of animal rights: – Ultimately, as a consequence of the work of the Extraordinary Committee on Animal Protection, the transitional period was extended to 8 years, and this is the biggest change – this is simply a compromise between the social side and breeders who demanded 15 years – says the typical of the Open Cages organization. – From our position – to the detriment of animals, but we realize that the conditions of all stakeholders request to be taken into account. We hope that due to the way the compensation strategy is designed – breeders will be able to apply for it only during the first 5 years of the ban, and the faster they close their business, the greater the compensation they will receive – most farms will close faster than the maximum period – he adds.
It is worth noting that the ban on fur farming does not include rabbits. The task says that “breeding or breeding for commercial fur animals... is prohibited but for rabbit. A akin provision was included within the bill that the Sejm tried to pass in 2020, as part of the alleged Animal Five. The author of the bill, Margaret Tracz, spoke about not including the rabbit in the ban on fur farming. On her Facebook page, she wrote that the reason for excluding this animal from the ban is that the task would "never have obtained a majority in the Sejm and the ban would not have been at all." The messenger stated that rabbits in Poland are bred for meat, so that the task involving them would not be right.
Passing the bill through the Sejm is an crucial step on the way to ban breeding on fur. Source: legislature of the Republic of Poland, photograph by Katarzyna Czerwińska / wikimedia commonsFarm conditions
The state in which the animals are kept for fur was documented by many conservation organisations. In 2025 the Open Cages Association controlled fur animals in western and central Poland. According to the organization, during the activities, puppies suffocating between cage rods, mothers watching over the dead young” and animals with open and untreated wounds were revealed. In 2016, the open cage activist secretly recorded his work on a mink farm. The recordings show paralysis and open, untreated burrows. Their brutal beatings by staff were besides shown.
It is worth noting that 1 of the louder media investigations was carried out in 2020 by Onet.pl in cooperation with Open Cages Association. The study “Blood fur business” intensified the Polish debate on the ban on fur farming. The activist of the organization, having taken up work on a mink farm in Górice, recorded the reality of this place. The nationwide media received drastic recordings of paralyzed mink with foam rolling with its mouth, injured animals with most likely severed skin lobes and exposed bones, and workers of the company throwing creatures at bars. The material besides shows the torn mink bodies and the glee of their dogs.
Numerous investigations and reports concerning the treatment of mink have caused outrage to a large part of Polish society. The decision coincided with an unsuccessful effort to pass the aforementioned bill commonly called "A Friday for Animals". The project, although supported by Jarosław Kaczyński, failed to pass. At that time, the bill was heavy criticized by the fur industry. The media support of the breeders then became involved, belonging to Toruń redemptorist Tadeusz Rydzyk, tv Trwam. On her air, the right to breed animals for fur in 2020 was defended, among others, by Stephen Wójcik, then 1 of the informal leaders of protests by farm owners and a mogul in the fur industry: "It's not just fur animals, it's not ritual slaughter, it's an ideology we've been talking about for a long time. For years we have warned that there is simply a process that happens before our eyes, a process of humanizing animals, animating man, equalizing the rights of 1 and the other," he stated.
The author of the bill – MP Małgorzata Tracz has reason to be satisfied. Source: Margaret Tracz, photograph by Piotr Spigiel / Flickr.com (CC BY 2.0)
It's not over yet.
Today, the fur manufacture besides expresses its discontent. At our request, the Act was commented by the Polish Union of Futer Animals Breeders: “The compensation proposed by the Government in the Act is insufficient. In countries with a developed fur-breeding sector specified as Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway, where it was decided to extinguish the farm, compensation was paid to breeders more than 10 times as proposed in the Act and reimbursement of the demolition costs of farms, as well as facilitation in the refurbishment.” The organisation in the paper sent to us did not mention straight to the question of the welfare of animals reared for fur.
Many animal rights organisations consider the adoption of the task a success. However, this is not the end of the legislative way of the Act. She inactive needs the legislature and the President's approval. The latter, however, is uncertain, given the conservative views of Karol Nawrocki and the frequent adherence by him, especially during the presidential campaign, by the preferences of the Confederate electorate. Therefore, animal rights organisations will inactive live in uncertainty as to whether their long-term efforts will yet pay off and the destiny of fur beings will yet improve.
Leo Targoni
