Martin County grain and hog farmer Wanda Patsche may be picked as Minnesota Woman Farmer of the Year at Farmfest later this week, but things haven't gone her way in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
There's that bacon crisis looming in California, according to the Associated Press.
Late last week, Jennifer Shike reported for Pork Business in Federal Court Rejects NPPC's Petition to Strike Down Proposition 12:
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit declined the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) and American Farm Bureau Federation's petition to strike down Proposition 12 as unconstitutional under the dormant Commerce Clause.
"We are disappointed in the court's decision and maintain our position on Prop 12: It is a clear violation of the U.S. Constitution's Commerce Clause," NPPC spokesman Jim Monroe says. "We are evaluating the decision and our next steps."
The court said for dormant Commerce Clause purposes, laws that increase compliance costs, without more, do not constitute a significant burden on interstate commerce. The court's decision was 3-0.The court said the groups' complaint against the state "fails to make a plausible allegation that the pork production industry is of such national concern that it is analogous to taxation or interstate travel, where uniform rules are crucial. Although the complaint plausibly alleges that Proposition 12 will have an impact on a national industry, we have already held that such impacts do not render the state law impermissibly extraterritorial."
William Friedman of EarthClaims LLC, says, "The Ninth Circuit's decision is unremarkable, especially given the narrow chance of winning under the controlling cases in the Ninth Circuit. Although I am pretty sure we will see a petition to the Supreme Court, it's an uphill push from here. This kind of case is not typically a high priority for the U.S. Supreme Court."
Proposition 12, set to go into effect on Jan. 1, 2022, will impose animal housing standards that reach far outside the state’s borders to farms across the country, NPPC said, while driving up costs for both pork producers and consumers.
“The challenges U.S. hog farmers face from Proposition 12 are daunting and come on top of the ravages of trade retaliation in 2018-19 and the shock of COVID-19 in 2020,” NPPC President Jen Sorenson wrote in a May 27 letter to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack. “Hog farmers are also faced in 2021 with a federal district court decision which, if left unchecked, will result in a loss of 2.5% of national pork harvest capacity -- handing pork packers more market power at the expenses of hog farmers, especially smaller producers.”
In late June, the Supreme Court denied a petition filed by the North American Meat Institute, with the support of 20 states, to review Proposition 12. The denial of the petition for a writ of certiorari was among dozens announced on June 28 by the court. No explanation was provided for the reason why the petition was denied. The petition challenged the sales ban in California on veal and pork not raised according to Prop 12’s housing standards. . . . .
Gestation crates in farrowing barns--a standard feature in Minnesota's pork industry--will go against California standards.
However, ABC10's Matthew Nuttle reports that California's 'Great Bacon Crisis of 2022' is probably a little overblown:
No more bacon or pork products in California? The prospect caused quite a kerfuffle on social media over the weekend when the Associated Press reported that a proposition set to go into effect in 2022 could have a huge impact on the pork industry in the state.
Proposition 12 – the Farm Animal Confinement Proposition – was passed by Californians with overwhelming support in 2018. Beginning on Jan. 1, 2022, Prop 12 increases the minimum confinement area allowed for “breeding pigs, egg-laying chickens and veal calves.” It also bans the sale of products from those farms that fail to meet those new confinement standards.
Specifically for pigs, that area is increased to 24 square feet, up from 20 square feet set in 2020. While veal and egg producers say they can meet those requirements, only about 4% of pork producers say they can comply with the rules, according to AP reporting.
That is what is concerning to pork lovers in California.
But don't start hoarding bacon just yet. Fears of cutting off the entire pork supply to the state are a little overblown. For starters, it would be devastating to the pork industry. That's because Californians consume about 15% of all the pork produced nationwide.
Another reason not to worry about pork totally disappearing in the state is the fact that California farms already produce a lot of it. According to industry insider FoodProcessing.com, California produces 45 million pounds of pork per month.
However, the state consumes about 225 million pounds monthly. So, if more industrial farms outside of the state don’t comply and fast, it’s highly likely that the cost of pork products in California will increase.
In an example cited by the AP from a study by the Hatamiya Group, if half of the pork supply was lost in California, costs could increase as much as 60% – making a $6 package of bacon in 2021 cost approximately $9.60 in 2022.
It should be noted that California is not some rogue state, going it alone for animal rights. Since 2018, 12 other states have passed laws restricting forms of farm animal confinement. Ten of those states specifically passed laws concerning the confinement of pig gestation crates, according to the ASPCA.
With just five months left in 2021, there’s not much time left for the pork industry at large to comply with the regulations en masse. Industry analysts who spoke to the AP predict prices of pork products to rise in California but to stay virtually unchanged for the rest of the country.
Eventually though, those same analysts predict the California standard could become the norm, simply by the fact that the industry can’t afford to ignore the market demand from the state. . . .
How dare uneducated consumers vote the way Californians did, Patsche wrote in an article for Swineweb, Why California’s Proposition 12 Matters To Our Nation’s Pig Farmers:
It’s very concerning when people vote on issues when they don’t understand the ramifications. There is no clearer example than the approved California ballot initiative–Proposition 12. Proposition 12 addresses farm animal housing standards. The problem? Unfortunately, Californians didn’t have enough knowledge to make a good, educated decision. The only way our type of government works properly is if we have an educated electorate. . . .
The proposition was asking its voters to determine how chickens, pigs, and dairy calves should be housed. But my question is, do the citizens of California have enough knowledge to vote on how livestock animals should be housed? Evidently, they feel they do.
So let’s be honest, how many Californian’s really studied this proposition? At first glance after reading the proposition, why wouldn’t you vote for this? It sounds like a good thing. Who wants farm animals confined in noncomplying manners? No one, right? It’s definitely a feel-good kind of vote. But what ended up happening is all Californians were given the title of “animal care experts.”
But . . .
Who are the animal care experts?
Are Californians the animal care experts? Do they really know how to care for chickens, pigs, and cows? Or are farmers the animal care experts?
And I will take this one step further, why was this on the ballot?
This would be no different than having each of us vote on specific medical procedures surgeons use. Do I have enough medical knowledge that I can tell a surgeon on what medical procedure they should use? I think not. I would NEVER want to vote on an issue like that. I acknowledge I don’t have the knowledge and I am not the expert. But for some reason, California thinks they are animal care experts.
So how does Proposition 12 affect pig farmers?
Part of the ballot initiative talks about a “noncomplying manner.” For pigs, this specifically talks about the use of gestation stalls. You can read about why pig farmers use gestation stalls. The bottom line is there is NO perfect sow housing. None. There are advantages and disadvantages of both gestation stalls and open pen housing or loose sow housing. We should leave the decision on animal housing to those who know best. Farmers know what is best for their animals. Pig farming success is more dependent on how the pigs are managed or cared for and not how they are housed. The bottom line – we should not be micromanaging farmers. Let’s leave animal care decisions to the farmers and their veterinarians. . . .
Nothing's perfect. The article is a reprint of a March post at Patsche's blog, Minnesota Farm Living.
In mid-July, the Fairmont Sentinel reported in Local farmers face difficulty with California law:
Pigs are big business for Martin County. With over 150 pig farms, the county produces 40 million pounds of bacon per year, creates several jobs, and generates a fair sum of money.
With that said, hog farmers are looking at some troubling times thanks to regulation out of California with a law known as Proposition 12. Farmer Wanda Patsche explains just how a law in California is set to have a negative impact, not only on Martin County but the entire nation.
“It is a California proposition and it’s all about how animals are housed,” said Patsche. “What they did is they put this on their ballot for their citizens to vote on. It came back that the citizens of California said that any meat that’s going to be sold in the State of California needs to meet certain requirements about how animals are raised.
“The one that affects us here in Martin County, and on my farm particularly, is about the park. It’s not the market hogs like we sell to Hormel, it’s the sows, the mothers of the market hogs.
“What they’re saying is that they want larger areas for them to be housed in. Right now with the pigs that we have on our farm, their mothers are housed in individual stalls which the industry has been using for a very long time. I often say that there’s no perfect sow housing because there are always pros and cons.
“We used to have our hogs outdoors, but many people who are not familiar with farming and farming practices are envisioning this nice, sunny, 70-degree afternoon where the animals should be outside. First of all, how many days do we actually have like that? Number two, especially with sows and pigs, is that they’re aggressive with each other, especially sows.
“It’s part of their social hierarchy. If you put a group of sows together, they have to decide who’s on top. The way they do that is to fight each other, and we’ve literally had pigs die because another pig attacked it.”
Patsche notes that she is speaking from experience, sharing that when she started farming pigs were indeed outdoors.
“As the hog industry changed over the years, then we went into gestation barns. Then we could take those pigs that were outside and bring them indoors.
“Again, they’re in individual stalls so they’re not going to get bullied or killed by another sow. You can give them individual care, you can make sure they have the feed and water that they need, and any type of medical care that they would need.
“The negative part is that they’re in a stall, and that’s the part that California says they don’t want. So they said in order to sell pork in the State of California, animals have to come from farms that don’t use stalls. So they would not be able to buy any pork that comes from my farm, even though it doesn’t have anything to do with the market hogs, just their mothers.”
Patsche shares that the decision is frustrating, seeing the citizens of California have the ability to vote on the issue with a majority of them not understanding farming.
“Do you think that somebody in Los Angeles understands farming practices? They don’t know, and now it affects all 49 other states. For us to make the changes that they’re requiring would involve millions of dollars.
“We would have to redesign the complete barn system, with some remodeling and a lot of new barns would have to be built. It’s put us in a bad situation. . . .
That's certainly a consideration.
We know some Minnesota hog farmers who won't be placed in this "bad situation," as they raise hogs for Niman Ranch.
They haven't labeled their consumers as ignorant.
We also wonder: will the over-supply of pigs born in gestation barns temporarily lead to lower prices for bacon in places where legislators or citizens haven't chosen to restrict the use of gestation crates?
Photo: Credit, Niman Ranch, via December 2020 Minnesota family farm wins Niman Ranch Sustainable Hog Farmer of the Year Award: "Niman Ranch has recognized the Nuessmeier Family Farm of LeSueur, Minn., as the first recipient of the company’s Sustainable Hog Farmer of the Year Award. The inaugural recipients of the Niman Ranch Sustainable Hog Farmer of the Year honor are celebrated for decades of efforts to preserve farmland and conserve natural resources."
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