More and more states are passing and implementing policies addressing practices that can impact farm animal welfare, including 10 states that have specifically banned the use of gestation crates for sows in the past 20 years.
The USDA Economic Research Service recently released a summary of state farm animal welfare legislation and regulations addressing production practices prior to slaughter and their coverage of U.S. livestock industries. This report describes the current state of these policies, the extent of their implementation and geographic coverage, and the legal environment and challenges these policies have faced. Read the full report here.
Gestation Stalls in Pork Production
Florida enacted the first state policy to address farm animal welfare in production practices in 2002 as a state constitutional amendment outlawing the use of gestation stalls in pork production. The amendment made provisions for crate use immediately prior to birth but generally outlawed routine confinement of pregnant sows.
With the exception of Ohio, where gestation crate rules are scheduled to begin in 2026, all of these laws went into effect before 2022. Most states banning gestation crates have relatively small pork industries, with each of these states producing less than 1% of the national industry volume each year, the report notes. The two notable exceptions are Michigan and Ohio, which together have comprised an average of 4.5% of U.S. pork production since 2002.
“Many states’ initial policies on confinement addressed behaviors, requiring that pregnant sows only be confined in ways that allow the animal to lie down, stand up, fully extend its limbs, and turn around freely,” ERS explains. “However, more recent policies explicitly define a minimum space requirement to accommodate such behaviors.”
For example, California’s 2018 Proposition 12 set a requirement of a minimum of 24 sq. ft. of usable floorspace per breeding pig. Other states attempted to do the same, including New Jersey, where gestation crate bills were twice vetoed by the governor in 2013 and 2014. These bills have since been reintroduced in New Jersey. Meanwhile in New York, state legislators have proposed several bills for bans related to animal confinement since 2011.
A Look at the Reach
While each state with enacted bans imposed a varying timeline for full implementation, none of the bans took immediate effect. However, they did a lot a transition period ranging from one to 16 years, the report says. All passed bans are planned to be fully implemented by 2026.
Overall, the bans in these 10 states still represent less than 10% of either the total or breeding hog population in the U.S., according to the report. USDA, National Agricultural Statistics Service reported an average of fewer than 250 hogs per operation in these 10 states in 2017—the most recent census year—compared with the national average of over 1,100 hogs per operation.
The report notes with the increasing implementation of bans in Colorado and Michigan since 2018 and the projected ban in Ohio by 2026, more than 17% of all hog producers—and nearly 18%—of producers with breeding operations will be subject to a gestation crate ban.
The Impending Effect of Proposition 12
The report also looked at how the impending effect of California’s sales ban included in Proposition 12, passed in 2018 and begun in 2022 subject to court-imposed limits, has prompted legal actions by industry advocacy groups across the country, as well as proposals for legislation from senators from several major pork-producing states. One lawsuit seeking to overturn the law’s ban on sales of out-of-state non-compliant pork has reached the U.S. Supreme Court. The case – initiated by National Pork Producers Council and American Farm Bureau Federation – will be decided in Spring 2023.
California’s Proposition 12 ban on in-state sales of products from noncompliant operations was scheduled to begin in January 2022, but enforcement has been delayed for grocers, retailers and restaurants until July 1, 2023, to allow the Supreme Court case to be resolved.
“Costly facility conversion expenses and concerns about post-implementation reduced productivity slowed producer response to the impending impacts of the ban,” ERS said in the report. “Using estimates of 18%-productivity losses in converted systems due to reduced stocking capacity, coupled with a $225 per stall conversion cost, Seibert and Norwood found that converting a farrow-to-finish system away from gestation stalls resulted in a $1.15 annualized investment cost per finished pig. They estimated a $.03- to $0.04-increase, or approximately 8.7%, in the per pound cost of producing finished hogs in a gestation stall-free system compared with a gestation stall system.”
Because little pork production outside of the banning states was converted to compliant housing, the prohibition on noncompliant pork sales would reduce the supply of pork imported into California from out of state, the report said. Lee et al. (2021) estimate retail pork prices in California will increase 7.7%, reducing demand by 6.3% and resulting in an annual loss of $320 million in economic benefits for consumers.
Massachusetts was set to impose a similar retail sales ban on pork from confinement operations not in compliance with state law (Question 3) in 2022. However, enforcement was suspended to begin 30 days after the Supreme Court ruling on the suit challenging California’s Proposition 12.
What’s Ahead?
The authors of the report believe increasingly widespread sales bans may create short-run price increases, as California’s laws may have demonstrated.
“The increasing implementation of sales restrictions in other states widens the geographic distribution of those possible price effects,” the authors said.
Shifts in international animal welfare policies and production could increase the potential availability of compliant products for states with retail sales restrictions.
“Continuing policy efforts in other states, along with the historical success of ballot initiatives, indicate prospects are strong for additional state regulations similar in nature to those already in place,” ERS said in its conclusions. “In addition, recently proposed policies are beginning to target the dairy and beef industries, which thus far received less attention than the pork and poultry industries.”
