By Jen Sorenson, NPPC President and Iowa Select Farms communications director
On Jan. 1, 2022, U.S. pork producers – indeed, producers anywhere in the world – will need to meet California’s arbitrary sow housing standards if they want to sell pork in that market of 40 million consumers.
That’s when Proposition 12 (Prop 12), a ballot initiative approved in 2018 by California voters, goes into effect. The measure makes it a civil and criminal offense to sell pork from hogs born to sows raised in pens that do not comply with the state’s prescriptive housing standards. It applies to any uncooked pork sold in the state, whether produced there or outside its borders.
Nearly all pork currently produced in the U.S. fails to meet the state’s standards, so, right now, unless producers are willing to forgo 15% of their domestic market, they’ll need to switch to alternative sow housing systems – an expensive proposition.
A study of the initiative’s impact on the pork industry conducted by North Carolina State University agricultural economist Barry Goodwin found construction costs alone for building a new 5,200-sow operation would be $15.6 million; retrofitting existing barns would cost an average of $10 per pig, or $770 million for the industry’s 77 million sows.
There are also various compliance costs, which have yet to be determined since the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) is still writing the initiative’s implementing regulations.
That’s why the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) and the American Farm Bureau Federation (Farm Bureau) have been fighting tooth and nail against Prop 12, including petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to take their case against the initiative. The organizations are arguing that Prop 12 violates the U.S. Constitution’s Commerce Clause, which grants Congress the power to regulate trade among the states and restricts states from regulating commerce outside their borders, except for matters related to public health and safety.
The appeal to the high court comes after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in July upheld a lower court decision that found Prop 12 does not “directly” regulate conduct outside California. Although it agreed with NPPC and the Farm Bureau that Prop 12 will have “dramatic upstream effects and require pervasive changes to the pork industry nationwide,” the 9th Circuit ruled its precedent wouldn’t allow the case to continue. But that precedent runs counter to numerous Supreme Court decisions and is in conflict with other federal circuit courts, which makes the case ripe for review.
Although its supporters billed Prop 12 as an animal welfare and food safety initiative, the measure’s requirements will have no effect on either and may negatively affect both, according to numerous studies on animal housing. In fact, the CDFA acknowledged Prop 12 will have no effect on food safety and will increase sow mortality, resulting in fewer piglets.
The legal fight against Prop 12 is about more than saving pork producers’ bacon. It’s about the relationships between states, our nation’s “foundational limits” on a state’s power over out-of-state conduct and basic principles of federalism – the federal government’s authority over broad areas of national interest. For the sake of anyone who does business in California, or anywhere in the U.S., the Supreme Court should take up the challenge to Prop 12 and find that no state has a right to regulate beyond its borders products and practices that are otherwise safe and legal.
More from Farm Journal’s PORK:
Bringing Home the Bacon Takes on New Meaning for California Consumers
Delay Implementation of Proposition 12, Food Industry Leaders Urge
Judge Denies Proposition 12 Challenge From Iowa Pork Producers
Supreme Court Rejects Meat Institute’s Petition to Review Proposition 12
Federal Court Rejects NPPC’s Petition to Strike Down Proposition 12
Pork Industry Braces for Catastrophic Costs to Implement Proposition 12
