Iowa farmers react to Proposition 12

WASHINGTON — On Jan. 1, the Prevention of Cruelty to Farm Animals Act — better known as Proposition 12, the name of the 2018 ballot measure for the law — took effect in California. The state initiative passed with 63% approval in 2018, and effectively banned the sale of pork in the state unless it was raised under certain humane conditions.

Specifically, the law banned sales of pork unless it came from the offspring of a sow provided with “a minimum of 24 square feet of usable floor space per breeding pig,” according to the proposed regulatory text.

By the month’s end, a judge ordered a halt to enforcement of the law for pork products. By April, the Supreme Court agreed to take up the matter. On Oct. 11, the Court heard arguments in the case, titled National Pork Producers v. Ross.

As stakeholders await a decision, they remain at odds over the merits and impacts of the California law.

Iowa producers mostly oppose Prop 12, even if they agree with the premise

In Southeast Iowa — the epitome of hog country — pork producers said consumers should have options for pork raised under certain practices, but took issue with mandates imposing those standards.

“I will defend to death their right to have products sold with whatever kind of production parameters on it, and label it as such and let consumers make their choice,” JWV Pork Co-owner Heidi Vittetoe said. The company is a roughly 15,000-sow operation based in Washington. “My concern is consumers not having the choice, and the state of California … (setting) standards that, in effect, say how everything should be done in every other state in which their supply is raised.”

Vittetoe said meeting the requirements would drastically reduce output for pork producers and raise prices on the market.

“It would reduce the number of sows in a given facility by 40%,” she said. “There are costs associated with that, both to construct it, but also because when a barn or facility only can yield 60% of what it previously did, there has to be a commensurate improvement in price on the other end.”

A few say they favor the law. Diane Rosenberg, director of Jefferson County Farmers & Neighbors, said it was a step in the right direction.

Rosenberg said California was not the only state with animal welfare laws affecting other regions. She said 10 states have laws regarding the humane treatment of livestock raised for food.

“A lot of food companies are sourcing their pork and chicken from humane, non-gestation crate facilities, because the public wants it,” she said.

Major producers have options

Brenneman Pork is the 30th biggest pork producer in the U.S. and eighth biggest in Iowa, according to the 2021 Pork Powerhouse Rankings, pegging its sow count at 33,000. Owner Rob Brenneman said he disagreed with the mandate, but was adapting to meet California’s market demands, where court documents say 13% of the nation’s pork is consumed.

"It presents opportunity to reach a market that other people won’t be able to satisfy,“ Brenneman said. ”If Prop 12 goes through, we would have the facilities to satisfy that need … and if Prop 12 goes away, we have them designed so we can still raise pigs the same way we have.“

The facility built for Brenneman’s company is a 9,500-sow farm, which doesn’t come cheap. While the chart-topping pork company can handle that kind of cost, Brenneman said he worried about the impact on smaller producers.

“We’re in a low-cost business with not a lot of margins in the first place,” he said. “Some of the independents that are a little bit older or a little bit smaller might say, ‘This isn’t worth my time anymore, I can’t afford to do it,’ … that would be my concern, losing great family farmers.”

Some farmers disagree. Diane Rosenberg said Prop 12 established a market that was better suited to small producers.

“We’d like to see animals getting out of confinement altogether and being raised in a regenerative manner,” she said. “Prop 12 supports independent farmers, who in many ways are shut out of the market because of vertically integrated systems.”

Rosenberg said she was concerned about the loss of independent farmers as agribusinesses get larger and larger.

“In the last 50 years, we’ve lost 92% of our independent hog farmers with the rise of industrial ag,” she said. “It’s made it difficult for hog farmers to remain in business, and they basically need to find a niche market. If you want to be a hog farmer, you almost have to resort to operating a CAFO (confined animal feeding operation.) The way the market is set up, there’s not much choice.”

It’s a point of contention. Washington County and Iowa Pork Board Member Matt Gent said some producers had no way to adapt, even if the money were available.

“We’re next to a road and we don’t own the property next to us. The other side of the farm drops 40 feet, it’s on a hill,” he said of his own 5,000-head sow farm. “Our farm is landlocked, it could never be expanded. If those regulations pushed us to go to 24 square feet per sow, we would have to take our inventory down to about 3,600.”

Moral debate hard to regulate or resolve

Animal welfare considerations are the main argument of Prop 12 proponents.

“Gestation crates are these terrible things where mother pigs can’t even turn around or stand up,” Animal Legal Defense Fund Senior Staff Attorney Amanda Howell said. “They’re basically living the lions’ share of their lives in these metal cages … it’s really quite egregious animal cruelty.”

Producers, however, argue that unconfined animals have face welfare issues of their own.

“A crate is equally, or even more humane, than raising a Sow in loose housing,” Matt Gent said. “Sows are very passive aggressive, very territorial, and they will fight until they develop a hierarchy … when they don’t have their own space, when they’re not in a crate, they will fight.

“If you allow these sows in open pens, once they develop their hierarchy, then they actually become best friends … but they have to develop that hierarchy first, so it’s kind of a weird dynamic of how the pigs act.”

Vittetoe said the choice of 24 square foot requirements lacked empirical data.

“There is no information out there with scientific validity that says animals have better welfare at 24 square feet versus 22 square feet or 21 or 20,” she said. “There were many obvious limitations that come from animals being outside 12 months of the year in the climate of Iowa … there were so many things that were impediments to their access to things like feed and water.”

California regulators have made some concessions on the scientific debate, pitching Prop 12 as a preemptive measure amid ongoing debate.

“There is not currently a consensus in peer-reviewed published scientific literature that would allow the Department to independently confirm, according to its usual scientific practices, that the specific minimum confinement standards outlined … reduce the risk of human food-borne illness, promote worker safety, or other human or safety concerns,” the law’s Statement of Reason said, released Sept. 1. “It was reasonable for California’s voters to pass the Proposition 12 initiative as a precautionary measure … while such health and safety impacts remain a subject of scientific scrutiny.”

National focus on Constitution questions

Attorneys opposing Proposition 12 opened their arguments to the Court with points about the commerce clause, saying the law allowed California to regulate out-of-state farmers.

"Iowa has 65,000 sow farms, it has a very great interest in how those sows are housed,“ said Timothy Bishop, representing the National Pork Producers Council in the Oct. 11 hearing. ”What California is doing is essentially trampling on Iowa’s ability to say no.“

Proponents say Californians have a right to pork raised under moral standards, and can regulate their own markets however they like.

“California voters chose to pay higher prices to serve their local interest in refusing to provide a market to products they viewed as morally objectionable and potentially unsafe,” California Solicitor General Michael Mongan said. “The commerce Clause does not prohibit that choice … If Petitioners think Prop 12 raises policy concerns, the solution the framers provided was for them to ask Congress to regulate under the express terms of the Commerce Clause, not for courts to expand the Dormant Commerce Clause.”

Echoes of the argument are clear in farmers’ opinions, even without the legal language.

“This is America, and it was founded on being able to do what you believe in,” Gent said. “What bothers me about Prop 12 is when a state like California is trying to mandate it across all of pork production.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com, or Andy.Hallman@southeastiowaunion.com