As some states move to put stricter regulations on the meat and eggs sold within their borders, the agricultural industry and lawmakers are figuring out how to respond. That’s after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld California’s law earlier this year on animal confinement for pork sold in the state.
While the U.S. Supreme Court upheld California’s law regulating how much space pigs must have — even for those raised outside the state — the fight appears to be far from over.
Now the pork industry and others in agriculture are waiting to see if more states are likely to follow California and Massachusetts in passing animal welfare laws and whether other judicial and legislative action could stop prevent future state regulations.
The Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling upholding the law came down in May. Elizabeth Rumley, a senior staff attorney at the National Agricultural Law Center, writes about the farm animal confinement regulations for the center and leads informational presentations about the laws.
“It (the decision) goes well beyond just allowing these types of provisions for pork or for eggs or for anything else,” Rumley said. “It opens the door to restrictions on the sale of goods with many different types of production practices.”
It’s not uncommon for state laws to regulate how animals can be raised within their borders. But in more recent years, states such as Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Colorado and Michigan have enacted animal confinement regulations in the egg industry for products sold in the state, including those imported from other states.
Proposition 12, California’s law regulating the sale of pork, passed as a ballot initiative with about 62% of the vote in 2018. Two years before that, Question 3, a similar ballot measure in Massachusetts, passed with 77% approval.
The use of gestation crates, or metal cages for pregnant sows, are common in the hog industry. While Iowa is the top state for pig production followed by Minnesota and North Carolina, California accounts for less than 1% of the country’s pork sales but 13% of pork consumption.
California’s law requires 24 square feet of space per breeding pig. Some producers have converted their facilities to comply with laws in other states, according to the court’s ruling.
Ernie Goss, a regional economist at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, said not all producers will be able to take on those costs.
“That will require some re-engineering of the facilities for those farmers and some farmers are just not going to be able to comply,” Goss said.
Goss said the law will likely have more immediate and larger impacts in California. Economists at the University of California-Davis estimate prices for pork in California will rise about 25 cents per pound once the law is fully enforced, starting Jan. 1, 2024.
Goss said the effects on producers and consumers will depend on if more states adopt similar policies.
“Essentially, they’ll have increasing impacts as time goes on,” Goss said. “And certainly, the real impacts come if other states adopt the same policies, and that’s where the significant impacts will spill over into consumers nationwide, spillover into producers nationwide. So that’s the real key going forward.”
State regulation of food production remains a big question
The pork industry and others in agriculture are waiting to see if more states are likely to follow California and Massachusetts in passing animal welfare laws and whether other judicial and legislative action could stop prevent future state regulations.
