Animal Rights: New York City Lawmakers Pass Foie Gras Ban

New York City lawmakers on Wednesday passed a ban prohibiting the sale of Foie Gras, a specialty food product that consists of a fattened liver of a duck or goose. The ban is likely to be signed by Mayor Bill de Blasio and would be implemented in 2022.

Animal rights activists are concerned that the production method of Foie Gras is inhumane, as it involves force-feeding a bird with corn through a tube in a process called gavage.

Violators will pay $1,000 for each infraction and it could put some New York farms out of business due to loss of sales. Proponents have said that the gavage process doesn't harm the animal and claim that ducks and geese do not have a gag reflex.

So far, the dish has already been banned in Chicago, as well as California.

Production of Foie Gras is banned in many European countries, such as Germany, the U.K., Italy, and Poland. Australia and Argentina have also banned Foie Gras production.

France is the largest Foie Gras producer, producing around 70% of the world's supply of the product. Now that more parts of the U.S. are banning the product, France may now choose to export more Foie Gras to Asian countries.

Japan is the world's second-biggest global consumer of the product.