Last Chance to Avoid Havoc for Pork Producers

Farm Groups Try Yet Another Legal Effort to Get Supreme Court to Ban California’s Arbitrary Pork Housing Law.

by Gary Baise

The pork industry is getting its last shot at California’s Proposition 12, the arbitrary animal welfare law that in effect forces pork producers across the country to invest millions in new housing in order to sell pork into this 40 million consumer market. Californians account for 13% of the nation’s pork consumption yet import 99.87% of the pork its citizens consume.

The National Pork Producers Council and the American Farm Bureau Federation have filed a Writ of Certiorari in the United States Supreme Court. California’s Proposition 12 bans the sale of pork products in California unless the sow is housed the way California wants it to be housed. The California hog industry does not exist, for all practical purposes, so the state depends almost exclusively on pork from other states. But the pork producers in other states are not investing the millions it would take to satisfy California’s arbitrary rules, which its voters agreed to in 2018. So, come Jan. 1, 2022, you will in effect see two inefficient supply chains set up to feed California’s pork needs, as California citizens, including its poorest, will pay possibly double for the popular animal protein.

Massive costs

The massive costs of complying with Proposition 12 fall almost exclusively on out-of-state farmers.