In Tuesday’s elections, voters will decide several ballot initiatives on food and agricultural issues, including a ban on meat processing facilities in a South Dakota city and the expansion of universal school lunch to Colorado. California voters will determine the fate of a tax on high income earners to pay for green energy and for fighting wildfires, which have cost the state’s agricultural sector tens of millions of dollars.
In Sioux Falls, South Dakota, a proposed ban on new slaughterhouses within the city limits would preempt Wholestone Farms, a Nebraska-based company, from opening a 170-acre pork slaughterhouse that is slated to be constructed on industrial-zoned land.
Citizens for a Sustainable Sioux Falls, which has the backing of 56 local businesses, gathered the signatures to put the initiative on the ballot. On its website, the organization highlights concerns about slaughterhouses, such as wastewater discharge into the Big Sioux River and increased odors and traffic congestion.
Wholestone Farms says it would invest more than $45 million in a state-of-the-art wastewater treatment system that will exceed current and future compliance limits established by the EPA and the state of South Dakota. It also says the wastewater system will capture biogas and reduce overall carbon emissions of operations, while managing air quality and minimizing odor.
In Colorado, voters will consider a ballot measure that would make free lunches available to all public school students, following the lead of California, Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts and Nevada.
Currently, Colorado families of four making less than about $51,000 a year are eligible for free lunch. But supporters say close to 70,000 Colorado kids in families above that income threshold cannot afford school meals. The measure would raise $100 million a year by increasing state taxable income on residents who make at least $300,000 a year, about 3 or 4 percent of the population. It also would provide grants for schools to buy foods grown, raised or processed in Colorado, helping local farmers. Local news stories have reported that there is no organized opposition to the measure, although the Independence Institute, a Denver-based Libertarian think tank, recommends a no vote in its voter’s guide.
“During the pandemic there were free breakfast and lunches for all students and we saw a huge increase in students requesting those meals,” said Ellie Agar, spokesperson for the nonprofit Hunger Free Colorado. “Now that that has gone away, we know that those are families who could utilize these meals. By offering free meals to all kids, it removes the stigma and allows all students in public schools to have access to healthy meals.”
In California, voters will decide the fate of Proposition 30, a climate initiative that’s become the focus of a strange political fight between Gov. Gavin Newsom, firefighter unions, environmental groups and the ride-share company Lyft. The ballot measure would tax the ultra-wealthy to pay for electric vehicle programs and wildfire response, two essential components of the Golden State’s climate strategy. Last August, state regulators made international news when they banned the sale of gasoline-powered cars by 2035, a goal that requires construction of critical EV infrastructure. And the state’s increasingly brutal wildfire seasons have become one of its primary sources of greenhouse gas emissions.
Environmental groups and firefighter unions support Proposition 30, as does Lyft, but Gov. Newsom is stridently opposed. According to the Los Angeles Times, the “Yes on 30” campaign has been almost entirely bankrolled by Lyft, which under California law must transition to electric vehicles almost exclusively by 2030. The company could use revenue from Proposition 30 to fund this transition, and Gov. Newsom has called Proposition 30 “one company’s cynical scheme to grab a huge taxpayer-funded subsidy.” Wealthy individuals who would be subject to hire tax rates have also objected to the measure.