Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, is introducing legislation to protect farmers who supply animal products to California.
The measure comes in response to California Proposition 12 or the Farm Animal Confinement Initiative, which Californians voted to approve in 2018 in 2018. The law, which will come into effect at the beginning of 2022, aims to address animal cruelty by requiring producers who supply food to or within the state to keep animals in spaces that are large enough for movement.
It is first and foremost harmful to all Iowa producers. They grow and selling Iowa bacon, eggs and pork, and people across the country eat Iowa bacon, Hinson told Fox News in an interview. I think California liberals who move forward with this plan now think bacon comes from the grocery store.
Hinson's legislation hinders state and local governments from interfering with the agriculture products of other states; reiterates the Constitution's Commerce Clause, which empowers Congress to regulate state commerce; and creates a federal call of action to challenge California's rule.
It is a bacon ban, plain and simple, Hinson said.
Under Prop 12, farmers must house animals such as veal calves, breeding pigs and egg-laying hens in places that conform to specific standards for freedom of movement, cage-free design and minimum floor space, according to the California Department of Food and AgricultureCalifornia Department of Food and Agriculture. The law requires pork farmers, specifically, to house breeding pigs in 24 square-foot pens so that they have enough space to turn around and extend their limbs.
At one typical hog farm in Iowa, sows are kept in open air crates measuring 14 square feet when they join a herd and then for a week as part of the insemination process before moving to larger, roughly 20 - square-foot group pens with other hogs. Both are less than the space requirements under Prop 12. Other operations keep sows in the crates almost all of the time, which wouldn't be in compliance with Prop 12.
Hinson argues that Iowa farmers know what they're doing with regards to the treatment of their animals and suggested California legislators visit an Iowa pork farm before moving forward with the new law.
For years, animal welfare organizations have been clamoring for more humane treatment of farm animals, but the California rules could be a rare case of consumers paying a price for their beliefs.
We are very concerned about the potential supply impacts and thus cost increases, said Matt Sutton, the public policy director for the California Restaurant AssociationCalifornia Restaurant Association, to the Associated Press.
But unless the courts intervene or California temporarily allows non-compliant meat to be sold in the state, the state will lose almost all of its pork supplies, much from Iowa, and pork producers will have higher costs to regain a key market. California's restaurants and groceries produce about 255 million pounds of pork a month, but its farms produce only 45 million pounds, according to Rabobank, a global food and agriculture financial service company.
Restaurant owners in California have argued that the new rule could hurt business after the pandemic.
Jeannie Kim, who owns a restaurant in California named SAMS American Eatery, fears her breakfast food could be ruined soon by new rules that could make one of her top menu items — bacon — hard to get in San Francisco.
Our Number One Selling is bacon, eggs and hash browns, reported Kim with The AP. Hinson pointed to small restaurants like Kim's that could be impacted by the new rule, as well as small pork producers in Iowa that will bear the brunt of the law come 2022.
Those smaller farmers — those family-owned farms — are going to be the ones who are hardest hit at a time when we want to make sure that multi-generational family farms and hog producers continue to feed the world, which is what they want to do, said Iowa congresswoman. The National Pork Producers Council asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture for federal aid to help pay for the retrofitting of hog facilities around the nation to fill the gap. Hog farmers said they haven't complied because of the costs and California has yet issued formal regulations on how the new standards will be administered and enforced.
Barry Goodwin, an economist at North Carolina State University, estimated the extra costs for a farm with 1,000 breeding pigs at 15% more per animal.
If half the pork supply was suddenly lost in California, bacon prices would jump 60%, meaning a $16 package would rise to about $9.60, according to a study by Hatamiya Group, a consulting firm hired by opponents of the state proposition. Price increases for pork in the state, however, may not initially impact pork buyers elsewhere in U.S., though it is unclear what the long-term, nationwide effects of Prop 12 will be.