The Supreme Court will hear a challenge to Proposition 12, a California law that requires adequate space for breeding pigs to turn around, saying it unfairly burdens out-of-state farmers, reported The New York Times.
Although the 2018 ballot measure was approved by more than 60 percent of the state’s voters, it’s being challenged by the National Pork Producers Council and the American Farm Bureau Federation, who said it interfered with interstate commerce and sound business practices.
“Almost no sow farmers in the country satisfy Proposition 12’s sow housing requirements, and most believe that those requirements would harm their animals, employees, and operations,” lawyers for the two groups told the justices in their petition seeking review.
On the other side, Rob Bonta, California’s attorney general, said in his brief that the state was entitled to regulate sales there, adding that the law “is entirely indifferent to the ways products sold in other states are priced or produced.” He added that “a number of pork producers and suppliers have publicly announced that they have taken steps to ensure that their products will continue to be sold lawfully in California,” including Tyson and Hormel.
The law forbids the sale of most pork in California unless the pig it comes from was born to a sow that was housed with 24 square feet of space. But most sows around the nation are kept in much smaller enclosures.
Since California imports almost all the pork sold in the state, the article noted that the law as a practical matter seeks to regulate producers in places like Minnesota and Iowa. Full Story
Related: CA Judge Rules Prop 22 'Unenforceable'; Nonprofit Ranks Grocers on Chicken Welfare.