By Animal Wellness Action, The Animal Wellness Foundation, and The Center for a Humane Economy
The Center for a Humane Economy (Center) and its sister organizations are calling on all California-based food retailers, especially the biggest names in the American grocery, fast food, and food service industries, to abide by the housing standards prescribed by Proposition 12 (passed overwhelmingly in November 2018) and stop selling eggs and pork from animals tightly confined in small cages or narrow crates. All provisions of Prop 12 come into effect January 1, though some elements of the ballot measure were triggered earlier by the terms of the voter-approved measure.
Earlier this month, the Center, Animal Wellness Action, Animal Wellness Foundation, and Americans for Family Farmers sued the California Department of Food and Agriculture, alleging that proposed regulations were incomplete because they did not cover the range of animal welfare and public health and safety concerns that motivated voters to demand more responsible living standards for animals. The lawsuit successfully triggered some improvements to the regulations.
“Californians first banned extreme confinement of farm animals 13 years ago at the ballot box in passing Proposition 2 by a landslide,” said Wayne Pacelle, president of the Center for a Humane Economy. “Voters then approved a second and stronger ballot measure on the same subject 10 years later by the same margin. Agribusiness companies and food retailers should not act with surprise that California is now on the cusp of implementing these anti-confinement laws. The new space standards for hens and sows – and the end of the era of immobilizing animals in small cages and crates – have been in bright lights for years.”
Prop 12 prescribes that laying hens are given sufficient space and are not kept in cages. Pork sold in the state cannot come from breeding operations using two-foot by seven-foot gestation crates. Veal calves cannot be kept in small crates, either. The measure provided suppliers and sellers ample phase-in periods to implement the changes should they choose to sell eggs, pork, and veal in California.
“The food retailers that made anti-confinement commitments years ago now need to abide by them, as a matter of law and honoring their public pledges,” added Dr. Annie Harvilicz, D.V.M., the president of the Animal Wellness Foundation in Los Angeles.
McDonald’s announced in 2012 that it “believes gestation stalls are not a sustainable production system for the future.” Kroger’s announced that “a gestation crate-free environment is more humane and that the pork industry should work toward gestation crate-free housing.” Costco said it wants “all of the hogs throughout our pork supply chain to be housed in groups” and announced “this transition should be accomplished no later than 2022.” Walmart pledged to abide by the “Five Freedoms of Farm Animal Welfare,” and one of these tenets is freedom of movement for the animals.
Ten states have passed laws banning gestation crates, and so has the entire European Union. More than 60 of the largest food retailers pledged to stop buying pork from operations that confine the breeding sows, – with many of the corporate promises ripening in 2022 (coincident with Prop 12’s legal standards).
“There’s nothing radical about letting animals move,” added Jim Keen, D.V.M, Ph.D, and the director of veterinary programs for the Center for a Humane Economy. “What’s radical is confining them in cages so small that the animals are immobilized. Now the enforcement of the law must catch up to the enactment of the law.” Dr. Keen taught farm animal science at the University of Nebraska School of Veterinary Medicine and worked at the U.S. Meat Animal Research Center of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The National Pork Producers Council (NPPC), the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), the North American Meat Institute, and a handful of other industry actors have sued the state of California to gut the statute. But the series of cases they and their proxies have initiated — mainly arguing that the restrictions on sales of pork in California from other states violate the dormant Commerce Clause — have all been turned back by the federal courts.
NPPC and AFBF have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear an appeal.
NPPC and other food producers have warned of higher bacon prices, even as they work with food processors to jack up prices. The Biden Administration has called out price-gouging by the highly consolidated meat industry, including meat packers. It’s “the greed of meat conglomerates” according to White House press secretary Jen Psaki. “You could call it jacking up prices during a pandemic.”
About the authors: The Animal Wellness Foundation is a Los Angeles-based charitable organization with a mission of helping animals by making veterinary care available to everyone with a pet, regardless of economic ability. The Center for a Humane Economy is a non-profit organization that focuses on influencing the conduct of corporations to forge a humane economic order. Animal Wellness Action is a Washington, D.C.-based 501(c)(4) organization with a mission of helping animals by promoting legal standards forbidding cruelty.
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Guest says
Only the IGNORANT UNEDUCATED will put a Racial Spin on just about anything….Fact is this is going to increase prices even further and WE ALL HAVE TO EAT…………..JUST A THOUGHT.
Fat White Bob says
I see the educated spin racism more than the ignorant. It’s the calculated effort that gives it away.
Alby says
And then you learn that I’m not White,,,, “Alby comes across as an observational person with many opinions”
FWB says
oh really.. Alby damned
Alby says
And then you learn that I’m just kidding,,,”despicable.”
Alby says
Nor one drop of physicality. A despicable person is someone that thinks that a strangers social distance doesn’t matter in public. A despicable person is someone that purposefully throws trash such as used face masks and dirty bathroom paper to provoke complaints from neighbors to get section 8 to house them somewhere else that they like better. If you’ve never done that, nor tread on another person with animal stigma wondering and hoping that that person is racist so that you can unleash, then I’ll gladly accept your criticism with my head down. I must say that pigs are animals that have no choice therefore, they deserve quite a few drops of empathy and more… Like a little bit more space so that they can breath and smell the roses before being turned into McNuggets and frenchfry additives.
FWB says
Pigs are smart and friendly if you’re nice to them
Tim Scott says
I assume you mean they are smart either way, and friendly if you are nice to them. If being nice to something could make it smarter I would modify my behavior.
Marianne Stanley says
Alby is a hateful person…Not one drop of empathy
Tim Scott says
Well, yeah. That’s well established.
Timpathetic says
@tim you are far from empathetic, and sympathetic, you’re just pathetic. Read all your comments the past year to your kids and ask them how proud they are of you. Lemme know.
One of Tims kids says
Its ok daddy go get em. Proud of you dyaddy.
Anna says
You actually think these losers have kids,
They have animals.
Tim Scott says
FWIW I have both. Kids are grown and doing fine, so now I have dogs, who are also doing fine.
America's Most Petulant Pendejo says
Anna:
That was vicious. You might require a muzzle. Do you have your rabies shots?
William says
Animals have kids too. It’s no big deal. In fact, they can’t help themselves.
Only humans and Anna think that getting knocked up is an accomplishment.
We now have a country where generations of cousins marrying cousins in certain parts of the country are now running the country.
Don’t ask “What could go wrong?” It already has.
The so-called “pro-life” people are the ones whose parents didn’t avail themselves of a wise choice.
The pro-lifers churning out kids like themselves have done more damage than all the minority single mothers who they demonize have. And, they’re still at it.
Thomas and Kavenaugh, sexual harrassers, are worse than abortion. But, of course, they want to dictate to women with the same power moves on abortion as they used when making unwanted sexual advances. It’s in their DNA.
There will be dancing in the streets when they are no longer on the Court.
Anna says
So they already fled the indoctrination camp?
If only the dogs could be as lucky.
Marianne Stanley says
Alby comes across as a despicable person
Alby says
Next thing you know, pigs will be demanding free sec 8 housing to sleep and freebase in during the day and expect free monthly welfare checks to afford crack and booze to go out at night and stampede wherever they please. Then they are gonna hold up P.L.M. signs in protest while demanding reparations for all the McRibs and chitlins we have willfully eaten at their expense. Sounds familiar? The only difference is that pigs deserve it more.
FWB says
Pigs are as intelligent as three year old humans which means they’re smarter than most people reading this..
William says
So, Alby a monkey’s uncle. Section 8 renters live in better homes than you do.
Your envy is palpable.
Immigrants who come here not speaking English are more accomplished within a few years than you are assuming you were born here. That says a lot about you.