Let's mark World Animal Day by reflecting on the fight ahead of us

World Animal Day comes just days after a Guardian investigation revealed that death rates for female pigs in the US are rising sharply. Compassion in World Farming has condemned the industrial farming practices that have seen sows 'bred to their limit'.

Today's mission is to raise the status of animals in order to improve welfare standards around the globe. But to do that we must recognise the threats to welfare standards.

With the disgraced former Defence Secretary and current International Trade Secretary Liam Fox vowing to scrap EU food and public health standards in pursuit of a TTIP-like UK-US trade deal after the UK leaves the EU, it is clear Brexit poses a huge threat.

EU rules currently, among other things, prohibit the sale of chlorinated chicken and hormone-injected cattle. The Trade Secretary is linked to a shadowy network of transatlantic right-wing lobby groups that have long pushed for the UK and EU to open its markets to cheaper, lower quality US agricultural products, produced to lower welfare standards.

Last month, the government also announced its plans not to abide by EU rules preventing the overmedication of farmed animals, with antibiotics vital for human health, post-Brexit.

These latest revelations are shocking, but not surprising. The extremes of industrial factory farming in America require the industry to do everything it can to blind itself to the fact that farmed animals are living, breathing, feeling creatures. From pigs to cows to chickens, US welfare standards are rock bottom to non-existent. Yet, shockingly, these are the standards Liam Fox wants Britain to emulate after it 'breaks free' from EU welfare safeguards.

As the Green Party's spokesperson for animal rights issues, I know we must organise urgently to resist this deregulatory push. Join us now.

You can find out more about the Brexit risks to farm animal welfare here and d ownload my report on the issue here and find out more about my panel on farmed animal welfare at the Green Party conference on Saturday.