Six years after voters approved it in a landslide, California’s Proposition 12 animal welfare law, which requires farmers to provide more room for egg-laying hens, veal calves, and breeding sows, is fully in effect with the start of 2024. A USDA regulation setting welfare standards for livestock on organic farms will take effect on Jan. 12, creating a rare convergence of starting dates for significant livestock regulations.
And in mid-February, another USDA regulation, intended to give poultry farmers more information to evaluate contracts offered by processors, will come into effect.
“We are thrilled that Proposition 12, the nation’s strongest farm animal protection law, is finally fully implemented,” said Kitty Block, chief executive of the Humane Society of the United States, a key proponent of Prop 12. “No animal deserves to spend her life in a cage where she’s virtually immobilized.”
The pork industry and the largest U.S. farm group fought Prop 12 for years as a costly impediment to interstate commerce; provisions dealing with hens and calves were implemented without the litigation that centered on pork. The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of Prop 12 in a 5-4 decision last May.
“While the Constitution addresses many weighty issues, the type of pork chops California merchants may sell is not on that list,” wrote Justice Neil Gorsuch in the Court’s primary opinion. The pork industry hopes that Congress will override the ruling. Foes say the legislation backed by the pork industry would imperil hundreds of state consumer safety laws.
Prop 12 requires hog farmers in California to to provide 24 square feet of space for each of their sows, except for a few days before they give birth and for three weeks afterward, until their piglets are weaned. It effectively bans the use of so-called sow crates, widely used on hog farms.
The law also bars the sale of whole, uncooked pork cuts such as bacon and ribs from hogs raised outside the state on farms that do not meet California’s standards.
Pork that goes into processed or pre-cooked foods such as hot dogs or frozen pizza is exempt. California accounts for 13 percent of U.S. pork consumption and almost all of it comes from other states.
While the California state Department of Food and Agriculture wrote the regulations to implement Prop 12, enforcement is in the hands of state and local prosecutors. “When fully implemented, including third-party certification of compliance which is required for distributor registration in 2024, the regulations and CDFA activity will provide the framework for consumers and other end-users like retailers, grocers, and restaurants to have confidence that the covered product they buy or sell in California is compliant with Prop 12,” said the department in July.
The groups that challenged Prop 12 before the Supreme Court said the law will result in higher pork prices in California and dislocations in pork supplies. The Humane Society pointed to statements by some of the largest U.S. pork processors that they would comply with Prop 12. The USDA has modified a weekly report on hog marketings to show the premium that was being paid for hogs raised in compliance with “animal confinement legislation,” such as Prop 12. In late December, the premium was an average $4.92 per 100 pounds.
Montana farmer Nate Powell-Palm, who chairs the National Organic Standards Board, said the new organic livestock rule would make organic “the gold standard of animal care” when it was previewed in November. The rule requires unlimited outdoor access for animals, an industry norm, and prohibits the small enclosed “porches” that some poultry farms have said are sufficient.
Under the Organic Livestock and Poultry Standard, producers must provide enough room for their cattle, hogs, and poultry to stand up, turn around, lie down, fully stretch their limbs, and carry out natural behaviors, such as rooting by pigs. Those are a contrast with conventional agriculture, where egg-laying hens are often housed in small “battery” cages and sow crates restrict the movement of pregnant sows.
Producers will have a year to comply with the organic livestock rules, with five years allowed for poultry producers to meet the requirements for outdoor access and room indoors for birds to move about.
The USDA poultry rule requires processors to give farmers a document that shows potential earnings, variable costs, minimum flock placements, and how the processor will resolve such issues as sick flocks and natural disasters. A different disclosure document will be required if growers will be part of a “tournament” system that pits producers against each other in a competition for income.
Meat processors and farmers also have challenged a 2016 voter-passed referendum, known as Question 3, in Massachusetts that sets conditions on hog farmers and pork sales that are similar to Prop 12. The state asked for dismissal of the lawsuit in late December on grounds that the processors failed to show they were harmed by the law, reported DTN/Progressive Farmer.
A Prop 12 fact sheet by the California Department of Food and Agriculture is available here.
A USDA fact sheet on the organic livestock rule is available here.
To read the organic livestock rule, click here.