DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Ohio hog farmer Joe Brandt changed his operation a few years ago to give his pigs more room and keep pregnant sows out of the narrow crates used by most farms.
Brandt said he wanted to treat his pigs more humanely, but in doing so he also created a niche for his family business amid heightened concerns about the treatment of animals, and that enabled him to charge higher prices for the pigs.
That payoff seemed likely to grow even larger after the January 2022 implementation of a California ballot measure that required all pork sold in the state to abide by the standards Brandt had already implemented but that are rarely seen in large hog farms. With that measure, Brandt and farmers like him would suddenly be the only sources of bacon and pork chops for a state of 39 million people that consumes about 13% of the nation’s pork supply.
Yet, for reasons out of Brandt’s control, it hasn’t happened. California has yet to fully write and approve the necessary regulations, a state judge has blocked enforcement of the law because of that regulatory delay, and the U.S. Supreme Court will soon hear a case brought by a national pork industry group that opposes the regulations. Given all the delays, Brandt wonders if he will ever see the surge in demand he expected when the measure was overwhelmingly approved by California voters in 2018.
“It absolutely would help,” said Brandt, who maintains a herd of about 1,500 sows at his farm near Versailles, Ohio. “It comes down to positioning yourself. If you see something and you’re progressive and you work toward it and you believe in it, I think if a measure like this does pass, you should be rewarded for it.”
Brandt is among hundreds of relatively small farmers who are caught between the state of California and the Iowa-based National Pork Producers Council, which represents the nation’s largest pig operations, based primarily in the Midwest and North Carolina.
At issue is whether California’s Proposition 12 violates the U.S. Constitution by interfering with a national system in which about 65,000 farmers raise 125 million hogs annually, resulting in gross sales of $26 billion. California’s regulations would ban pork sales in the state unless the pigs were born to sows with at least 24-square-feet of space and an ability to turn around.
The National Pork Producers Council and American Farm Bureau Federation argue that California’s law violates the Constitution’s commerce clause because it throws a wrench in the nation’s pork system and requires out-of-state producers to incur nearly all the costs of compliance.
After losing before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the national associations asked the U.S. Supreme Court to consider their case. Arguments are planned for October.
If the Supreme Court finds California’s law unconstitutional, it couldn’t be fully implemented and the nation’s pork producers would be free to continue their current operations, including the use of so-called gestation crates that protect sows from other pigs but prevent them from turning around. Other aspects of the California law — governing the treatment of egg-laying chickens and cattle raised for veal — could be enforced.
A judge on Aug. 11 placed a similar sow welfare law on hold in Massachusetts, pending the outcome of the Supreme Court case.
Jared Schilling, who raises about 40,000 sows a year near New Athens, Illinois, said his family hoped to gain a competitive edge when they changed their operation to give pigs more room. The move has paid off; he gets premium prices by selling his animals to specialty pork business Coleman Natural Foods. Brandt also sells to Coleman.
But Schilling said his profits would likely rise more if the California and Massachusetts laws are implemented.
“Every industry has to make changes to adapt to what the consumer wants, whether it’s the marketplace or legislation,” Schilling said. “Most would…
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