Calif. voters get chance to free the hens
Ballot bid gives farm animals more room to stretch
SAN FRANCISCO — California voters are right to think they already weighed in on how big cages should be for egg-laying hens.
In 2008, voters ushered in Proposition 2, which sought to free egglaying hens from tiny cages. It didn’t outlaw cages but barred California farmers from keeping hens — as well as calves raised for veal and breeding pigs — in pens so small they virtually couldn’t move.
Since then, supermarket shelves have filled with cage-free egg varieties. Corporations such as McDonald’s, Costco and Taco Bell have committed to using cage-free products.
But a decade later, voters are being asked to revisit the issue with Proposition 12, the Farm Animal Confinement Initiative.
The Humane Society of the United States, the issue’s primary proponent, says the measure is needed to update California standards and to apply those standards to out-of-state farmers selling their products in California. The earlier initiative simply stated the three types of animals that must be able to turn around freely, stand up and fully extend their limbs — but set no specifics.
A “yes” vote for Proposition 12 would create new minimum size requirements for confinement pens for all three animals and require that all egg-laying hens be cage-free by 2022.
It would also ban the sales from other states not meeting California’s standards.
The Humane Society calls the measure a “commonsense reform” that strengthens a decade-old animal cruelty law and gives farmers a phase-in time to shift to more humane practices. Opponents of Proposition 12 call it the “rotten egg initiative” and say it doesn’t go far enough to stop animal cruelty.