On Friday, the Supreme Court will meet to decide whether to hear a case (NPPC & AFBF v. Ross, et al) that farmers in Iowa and nationwide will watch very closely. The case relates to California’s Proposition 12, a law that imposes stricter housing rules for food animals sold into the state. 
 
This includes chickens, the eggs they lay, and other barnyard critters raised for food. The law’s affects will hit pork producers hardest.
 
Iowa is the nation’s top pork producer. California comes nowhere close, yet its proposed regulations put restrictions on how pork producers in all other states raise hogs.
 
For every pig raised in California, 235 are raised in Iowa. With California’s lack of production, I’m baffled that the Golden State should have any say in how Iowa hog producers raise pigs.
 
In 2008, California voters approved mandatory standards for housing pigs on California farms. The standards were impractical, which may be why so few pigs are raised in California.
 
In 2018, California voters went further with Prop. 12. With 15% of total national pork consumption, Californians are trying to use their state’s massive market to impose regulations on pig farmers nationwide.
 
Backers of the law claim it’s about the health and safety of pigs, but they clearly are unfamiliar with the process of raising pigs. Pork production is heavily supervised by local, state and federal inspectors, including in California. Prop. 12 made no improvements. It only further erodes food choice, and could take breakfast staples off the menu in the state.
 
The California law will also increase the costs incurred by pig farmers all over the country. Iowa pig farmers have already been resilient in the face of COVID-19, and like all Americans, they now are dealing with inflation raising input costs, too. If Prop. 12 stands, their costs could increase an additional 15%.
 
Here’s why. Farmers would have to remodel their barns. The total price of reconstructing a farm’s sow housing and related costs to fit Prop. 12’s requirements are significant and unreasonable. One animal protein analyst suggested producers could pay up to $4 million per additional barn to meet Prop. 12 compliance.
 
Lacking economies of scale and having little or no access to the capital required, pig producers will be forced to make an economic decision: Sell out to big operators or go out of business.

Iowa’s chicken and pig farmers have no say in California elections and the making of California rules. That’s exactly why the Founding Fathers included text regarding the regulation of interstate commerce in the Constitution to ensure a national market. This protects against large-population states like California using commercial power to impose their will on small-population states like Iowa.
 
California voters have no idea the damage this law will cause to not only Iowa pork producers but Iowa corn and soybean producers too. Roughly 22% of Iowa corn acres and 23% of Iowa soybean acres are consumed by pigs through feed. Higher pork prices caused by these regulations will translate into less pork consumption in the California market and less demand for our crops.  
 
The Supreme Court should save breakfast’s bacon and strike down California’s unconstitutional law. For our part in Congress, I’ve partnered with Sens. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) on legislation to restore the free market for pork and egg producers.
 

We don’t tell California grape or almond growers how to produce wine or almond butter, so Iowa producers would appreciate not being told how to raise livestock.