Farm Bureau and National Pork Producers File Legal Challenge to Prop 12

Prop 12 passed in 2018, Establishing new standards for confinement of specified farm animals and banning the sale of non-complying products.

One of those products is pork. California represents over 15% of the U.S. pork demand, but commercially only produces about 1,500 sows. To put that into perspective, it would take over 750,000 sows to satisfy California’s demand.

That’s where we have a problem, say the National Pork Producers Council and the American Farm Bureau Federation who recently filed a legal challenge to Prop 12. Michael Formica is the Assistant Vice President for Domestic Affairs at the National Pork Producers Council.

Formica…”It's a pretty clear violation of the commerce clause in the constitution that one state can't discriminate against another state. In this instance it's the extra-territorial regulation of a production practice. California is not regulating how pork is produced in California. Now they're claiming that their regulations would apply to pork in California, but there is no pork production in California. The intent from design and implementation of this was to impose California regulations on farms in other states.”

Formica says the motivation behind the bill were activist groups who want to end animal agriculture by making it more and more difficult for them to operate inside and outside California.

The ban for non-complying products is set to take effect January 1st, 2022.