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Missouri pork producers say a new California law that went into effect in January is hurting their businesses.
California voters passed Proposition 12 in 2018.
The law sets minimum space requirements for certain farm animals sold to California businesses.
“We’re seeing more and more regulations coming out of other states, as well trying to regulate how we in our state do business,” Todd Hays a pork producer, said. “It does put a disadvantage on the small family farmers.”
Hays’s family has been raising pigs for over 100 years in Marion County, Missouri.
Hays Ketsenburg Farm is owned by three families and they sell most of their products to Smithfield Foods.
The company is the world's largest pork processor and hog producer.
Their products are sold in the United States, Mexico, China and other countries.
The Hays Ketsenburg Farm has about 600 sows on the farm and sell about 13,000 to14,000 pigs each year.
It is labor-intensive work, but they do it because they care.
That's why a the new California law forcing him to change how Hays cares for his animals does not sit well with him.
“It set an arbitrary number on the square footage a sow would have while they’re in gestation,” Hays said.
He claims individual stalls prevent competition between animals and decrease mortality rates. The stalls also are climate-controlled, which minimizes the spread of disease.
“We’re able to monitor each individual animal on a daily basis and tell if they’ve ate, or if they drank, or if they need special attention, or moved to another area to give them more room,” said Hays. “As a farmer, we want to stick to the science — what’s best, what’s proven, what can we do.”
Hays was one of the opponents of the law who took a case to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court ruled 5-4 California has the right to set its own standards.
“What’s not to say in three or five years, they decide to move that up to 30-square-feet or 40-square-feet? Then do we spend more money and try to meet those standards again?” Hays asked.
KSHB 41 asked this question to Kate Brindle, program manager for Corporate and Public Policy Farm Animal Protection with the Humane Society of the United States.
“Because Prop 12 is in line with so many other countries, and it’s where the market is headed, I think those standards will stay,” Brindle said. “They reflect a standard, a worldwide standard, and they also reflect what consumers and voters across the country are demanding.”
Brindle says producers ultimately have the choice to do business with California or not, but they had enough time to adjust to Prop 12.
“It was enacted in 2018, meaning that producers who want to sell in California, they had notice," she said. "And they had six years to come into compliance.”
Brindle also says the markets have already adjusted to Proposition 12.
About 15% of all pork produced in the U.S. is consumed in California. Consumers there have no problem paying a little more.
“Agricultural economists, they’re all saying that these claims that Prop 12 is going to hurt the economy, hurt prices, they are simply not true,” said Brindle.
But it is not enough to cover the cost burden on farmers like Hays.
“Morally, they think it’s better for the animals," Hays said. "Well, everybody has a different opinion of that."
All eyes are now on the 2024 Farm Bill.
The Senate Agriculture Committee release its version of the five-year bill. It is already receiving a lot of backlash from opponents of Prop 12.
Unlike the bi-partisan bill from the House Agriculture Committee, the Senate version does not include any solutions to the concerns of farmers.
The Humane Society says any attempt to wipe out Prop 12 with congressional help is profoundly undemocratic and ignores the will of millions of voters.
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