Nothing is Black and White About Proposition 12, Pig Farmer Says
Phil Borgic, a hog producer from Raymond, Ill., all too vividly remembers sitting in his civics class many years ago. He thought it was pretty cut and dry that one state can’t tell another state how to run their business. But as Borgic told AgriTalk’s host Chip Flory, that argument didn’t stand before the Supreme Court in 2023 regarding California’s Proposition 12 (Prop 12).
In a recent op-ed in the Bloomington, Ill., Pantagraph, Borgic, along with Darrell Stitzel of Shannon, Ill., and Jeff Bolomey of Carlinville, Ill., said, “Hog farmers need our congressional lawmakers to find a solution to this issue.”
These hog farmers wrote this letter because they hope to get some resolution and laws coming through Congress to help the situation for pork producers today – not only with Prop 12, but also to set the groundwork for the future.
“We need to build a long-term program on what makes sense for agriculture and what makes sense for our animals,” Borgic told Flory.
The changes Prop 12 requires – and proposed changes other states are looking at – make it nearly impossible to fill the demand for pork, yet alone plan ahead, Borgic explained.
“All these changes take time, capital, research. And if they continue to move the goalposts, how can any industry move quick enough to satisfy the new laws that come before us?” he asked Flory. “What I want to see is stability, and some certainty. If we are going to have a program, it needs to be across multiple states and maybe across the nation, so that all pork producers know the direction we need to go and where the investment needs to be made.”
Does Compliancy Pencil Out?
Although Borgic has not made any adjustments to his pork operation to accommodate Prop 12, he is researching it and gathering information.
“At this point in time, the two packers I sell to don't have the demand where they are saying, ‘O.K., Phil, you need to go do this.’ I am looking for guidelines from them of where I need to go,” Borgic explained. “At this point in time they say there's not a market for that, and they can’t give me guidelines of what they want me to do long-term.”
Borgic pointed out that none of this is black and white. Questions remain. Are higher pork prices in California solely due to Prop 12? Is Prop 12 compliancy paying off for producers? Are audits enough to prove the right product is getting to California now?
“The basis of what we're being asked to do is the real concern,” Borgic said. “My dad was part of the generation that took us from outside, non-environmentally controlled facilities into the buildings we have today that keep them warm in the winter and cool in the summer. As producers, that's the one thing that drives us every day – doing what's best for the animal.”
The problem is, Prop 12 and Question 3 don’t look at what is best for the animal, he said.
Every Market Matters
With all the financial hits the industry has taken in the past 18 months, losing approximately $30 a head, Borgic said the California market does matter.
“We need every market we can get for moving our pork,” he said. “We’re asking our packers today to segregate for all kinds of different specifications. If we start adding multiple state requirements on top of that, that dramatically increases the cost at the packer level, besides the farm gate level,” he added.
Listen to the full episode of AgriTalk here.
