Stay Informed

The main result so far of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to uphold California’s controversial Proposition 12 has been questions – what will be in the new regulations, how they will be implemented and how they will be enforced.

But Indiana Farm Bureau’s legal affairs team does have one piece of concrete advice for pork producers, and that is to start communicating with their packer.

“That’s the resource they need to start with,” said John Shoup, director of the Indiana Agricultural Law Foundation ( INAgLaw).

Proposition 12 establishes animal welfare requirements that producers must satisfy to have their product sold in the state of California. The state represents 13% of the nation’s pork market but produces less than 1% of the pork, said Mark Thornburg, INFB executive director of legal affairs.

Packers have a series of questions that they need to figure out the answers for, including:

• What proof will they require that a farm is Prop 12 compliant?
• Are they going to segregate hogs that are Prop 12 compliant and those that are not, or are they going to stay out of the California market?
• Do they plan to offer a premium on hogs raised in compliance with the regulations?

The ruling sets a very troubling precedent, Shoup and Thornburg said, because Prop 12 is based purely on a moral position – that it’s wrong to raise hogs unless gestating sows are allowed a specific number of square feet.

“Under this case, one state was able to export its moral position to other states,” Shoup said. “They imposed these same restrictions on California producers, but there are very few California producers.”

It’s possible for Proposition 12 to be superseded by federal legislation, and that is something farm groups are exploring, Thornburg noted. The risk is that once a nationwide debate on livestock practices starts, there’s no telling where it will go.

“It’s a big country out there,” he said.

The American Farm Bureau Federation has assembled some resources regarding Proposition 12, and they can be found here.