California grocers seek delay in new law
ELLIOTT, Iowa — A coalition of California restaurants and grocery stores has filed a lawsuit to block implementation of a new farm animal welfare law, adding to uncertainty about whether bacon and other fresh pork products will be much more expensive or in short supply in the state when the new rules take effect on New Year’s Day.
The lawsuit is the latest step in a tumultuous threeyear process of enacting rules overwhelmingly approved by voters but that remain in question even as the law is set to begin. Since voters approved Proposition 12 by a 2-to-1 ratio in November 2018, state officials have missed deadlines for releasing specific regulations covering the humane treatment of animals that provide meat for the California market.
Most hog producers haven’t made changes to comply with the law. And now a coalition of business owners is seeking more than a two-year delay.
“We’re saying this is not going to work,” said Nate Rose, a spokesman for the California Grocers Association.
While groups are working to delay the measure, the state has eased the transition to the new system. It has allowed pork processed under the old rules and held in cold storage to be sold in California in 2022, which could prevent shortages for weeks or even months.
As Josh Balk, who leads farm animal protection efforts at the Humane Society of the United States, put it, California residents need not fear “pork industry claims of the apocalypse.”
Put simply, the law requires that breeding pigs, egg-laying chickens and veal calves be given enough space to stand and turn around. For pigs, that means they no longer can be kept in narrow “gestation crates” and must have 24 square feet (2.23 square meters) of usable space.
Producers of eggs and veal appear able to meet the new law, but hog farmers argued the changes would be too expensive and couldn’t be carried out until the state approved final regulations for the new standards. An estimate from North Carolina State University found the new standard would cost about 15% more per animal for a farm with 1,000 breeding pigs.
The National Pork Producers Council has challenged California’s right to impose standards on businesses in other states, but so far those efforts have failed.
California is the nation’s largest market for pork, and producers in major hog states like Iowa provide more than 80% of the roughly 255 million pounds that California’s restaurants and groceries use each month, according to Rabobank, a global food and agriculture financial services company.
Without that supply, it’s unclear if a state that consumes about 13% of the nation’s pork supply will have all the meat it demands. The North American Meat Institute, an industry group, said packers and processors “will do their best to serve the California market.”
“What will happen in California? I don’t know,” said Michael Formica, the general counsel for the National Pork Producers Council. “One thing we know is there will be finite supplies to sell there.”
Adding to the uncertainty is the lawsuit filed last month in Sacramento County by the California Grocers Association, California Restaurant Association, California Hispanic Chambers of Commerce, California Retailers Association and Kruse & Sons, a meat processor. The suit seeks a 28-month delay until final regulations for enforcement of the rules are officially adopted.