Bacon May Disappear In California As Pig Law Takes Effect

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You can’t have your bacon and eat it too.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Thanks to a reworked menu and long hours, Jeannie Kim managed to keep her San Francisco restaurant alive during the coronavirus pandemic.

That makes it all the more frustrating that she fears her breakfast-focused diner could be ruined within months by new rules that could make one of her top menu items — bacon — hard to get in California.

“Our number one seller is bacon, eggs and hash browns,” said Kim, who for 15 years has run SAMS American Eatery on the city’s busy Market Street. “It could be devastating for us.”

At the beginning of next year, California will begin enforcing an animal welfare proposition approved overwhelmingly by voters in 2018 that requires more space for breeding pigs, egg-laying chickens and veal calves. National veal and egg producers are optimistic they can meet the new standards, but only 4% of hog operations now comply with the new rules. Unless the courts intervene or the state temporarily allows non-compliant meat to be sold in the state, California will lose almost all of its pork supply, much of which comes from Iowa, and pork producers will face higher costs to regain a key market.

Animal welfare organizations for years have been pushing for more humane treatment of farm animals but the California rules could be a rare case of consumers clearly paying a price for their beliefs.

With little time left to build new facilities, inseminate sows and process the offspring by January, it’s hard to see how the pork industry can adequately supply California, which consumes roughly 15% of all pork produced in the country.

“We are very concerned about the potential supply impacts and therefore cost increases,” said Matt Sutton, the public policy director for the California Restaurant Association.

California’s restaurants and groceries use about 255 million pounds of pork a month, but its farms produce only 45 million pounds, according to Rabobank, a global food and agriculture financial services company.

The National Pork Producers Council has asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture for federal aid to help pay for retrofitting hog facilities around the nation to fill the gap. Hog farmers said they haven’t complied because of the cost and because California hasn’t yet issued formal regulations on how the new standards will be administered and enforced.

Barry Goodwin, an economist at North Carolina State University, estimated the extra costs at 15% more per animal for a farm with 1,000 breeding pigs.

If half the pork supply was suddenly lost in California, bacon prices would jump 60%, meaning a $6 package would rise to about $9.60, according to a study by the Hatamiya Group, a consulting firm hired by opponents of the state proposition.

At one typical hog farm in Iowa, sows are kept in open-air crates measuring 14-square-feet when they join a herd and then for a week as part of the insemination process before moving to larger, roughly 20-square foot group pens with other hogs. Both are less than the 24 square feet required by the California law to give breeding pigs enough room to turn around and to extend their limbs. Other operations keep sows in the crates nearly all of the time so also wouldn’t be in compliance.

The California Department of Food and Agriculture said that although the detailed regulations aren’t finished, the key rules about space have been known for years.

“It is important to note that the law itself cannot be changed by regulations and the law has been in place since the Farm Animal Confinement Proposition (Prop 12) passed by a wide margin in 2018,” the agency said in response to questions from the AP.

The pork industry has filed lawsuits but so far courts have supported the California law. The National Pork Producers Council and a coalition of California restaurants and business groups have asked Gov. Gavin Newsom to delay the new requirements. The council also is holding out hope that meat already in the supply chain could be sold, potentially delaying shortages.

Josh Balk, who leads farm animal protection efforts at the Humane Society of the United States, said the pork industry should accept the overwhelming view of Californians who want animals treated more humanely.

“Why are pork producers constantly trying to overturn laws relating to cruelty to animals?” Balk asked. “It says something about the pork industry when it seems its business operandi is to lose at the ballot when they try to defend the practices and then when animal cruelty laws are passed, to try to overturn them.”

In Iowa, which raises about one-third of the nation’s hogs, farmer Dwight Mogler estimates the changes would cost him $3 million and allow room for 250 pigs in a space that now holds 300.

To afford the expense, Mogler said, he’d need to earn an extra $20 per pig and so far, processors are offering far less.

“The question to us is, if we do these changes, what is the next change going to be in the rules two years, three years, five years ahead?” Mogler asked.

The California rules also create a challenge for slaughterhouses, which now may send different cuts of a single hog to locations around the nation and to other countries. Processors will need to design new systems to track California-compliant hogs and separate those premium cuts from standard pork that can serve the rest of the country.

At least initially, analysts predict that even as California pork prices soar, customers elsewhere in the country will see little difference. Eventually, California’s new rules could become a national standard because processors can’t afford to ignore the market in such a large state.

Kim, the San Francisco restaurant owner, said she survived the pandemic by paring back her menu, driving hundreds of miles herself through the Bay Area to deliver food and reducing staff.

Kim, who is Korean-American, said she’s especially worried for small restaurants whose customers can’t afford big price increases and that specialize in Asian and Hispanic dishes that typically include pork.

“You know, I work and live with a lot of Asian and Hispanic populations in the city and their diet consists of pork. Pork is huge,” Kim said. “It’s almost like bread and butter.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bacon-c ... b5897e307c

Rationing a rasher of bacon.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: Bacon May Disappear In California As Pig Law Takes Effect

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At the beginning of next year, California will begin enforcing an animal welfare proposition approved overwhelmingly by voters in 2018...
If the story is to be believed, this is what Californians wanted, which would include all the knock-on effects, such as not having bacon, Asian communities being disproportionately affected, and ensuing job losses.
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ɯɯ6 bdd ɹǝɥʇןɐʍ
13ʞ
"ǝuıqɹɐɔ 1ɐ4ɯ" dɯɐʇsןןoɹ --- ɯoɔos0269ǝן ʇןoɔ
"ǝuıqɹɐɔ ʇuǝɯǝɔɹoɟuǝ ʍɐן sʇןoɔ" dɯɐʇsןןoɹ --- 0269ǝן ʇןoɔ
(béɟ) 59-pɯɐ

Re: Bacon May Disappear In California As Pig Law Takes Effect

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People will be ordering boxes of bacon online or traveling to AZ, NV or OR to buy it. I don't eat it but plenty of people do. The National Pork Producers should have funded a competing initiative in 2018 and both would probably have lost. Same year that Newsom pushed his gun control initiatives, people just tick boxes on their ballots without thinking about consequences.

This sets up another bureaucracy to administer it.
https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/calif ... s-2964304/
Last edited by highdesert on Sun Aug 01, 2021 9:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Bacon May Disappear In California As Pig Law Takes Effect

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I can see the drug dealers now selling bacon and pork sausage. "Hey Man, I got some Fresh Hickory smoked lean for you and I also got the finest bacon grease to cook with. Maybe you need some Ham, or pickled pig feet? I can get those for you at a good price.

Or the checkpoints at the California border, You got any Fruits Vegetables or any Pig products. The police will retrain their Drug sniffing dogs to sniff for Pig products.

Police getting search warrants with the reason that neighbors smelled bacon being cooked.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: Bacon May Disappear In California As Pig Law Takes Effect

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I'm going to step out of line here and point out that there are lots of externalities in cheap bacon. Some economic, some environmental, some ethical.

I love bacon. Along with ranch dressing, it is one of the two essential ingredients to modern American cuisine. Something doesn't taste good? Add bacon and ranch dressing.

If I have to pay a little more to make sure that pig was raised humanely without screwing up the environment, then I'll just eat a little less. Which is probably better for my health.

I realize that is a very affluent thing to say. I also realize it's not as easy as that for most. Also, this will be one more reason for rural America to hate coastal elites.

This issue is loaded. Like a baked potato.

Re: Bacon May Disappear In California As Pig Law Takes Effect

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TrueTexan wrote: Sun Aug 01, 2021 9:52 am I can see the drug dealers now selling bacon and pork sausage. "Hey Man, I got some Fresh Hickory smoked lean for you and I also got the finest bacon grease to cook with. Maybe you need some Ham, or pickled pig feet? I can get those for you at a good price.

Or the checkpoints at the California border, You got any Fruits Vegetables or any Pig products. The police will retrain their Drug sniffing dogs to sniff for Pig products.

Police getting search warrants with the reason that neighbors smelled bacon being cooked.

LOL, all those things are possible in the nanny state of CA. The legislature will pass a law or someone will put an initiative on the ballot in 2022 to toughen up on pig enforcement. Maybe they'll create special police "pig units", an oxymoron.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Bacon May Disappear In California As Pig Law Takes Effect

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lurker wrote: Sun Aug 01, 2021 10:19 am i am constantly reminded of how i'm not "woke" enough.
I don't mean to be the "woke" asshole on an otherwise fun and light thread. It's just that we spend a lot of time here railing against the excesses of capitalism and how the environment is going down the crapper. Cheap factory raised meat is one of the glaring examples here. That's why I think it's important to point out the externalities. Cheap California meat comes at the expense of Midwestern clean water. Just like my $20 jeans come at the expense of some poor slave-wage earner in some unknown country.

I'm also not trying to get holier than thou on anyone here. I'm a meat eater. My wife and I have gone to considerable effort over the past 10 years to try to eat humanely raised, environmentally responsible meat, and it's almost impossible in America right now. Cheap meat is everywhere. We're not puritans on this issue by any means, just trying.

Re: Bacon May Disappear In California As Pig Law Takes Effect

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cooper wrote: Sun Aug 01, 2021 10:35 am
lurker wrote: Sun Aug 01, 2021 10:19 am i am constantly reminded of how i'm not "woke" enough.
I don't mean to be the "woke" asshole on an otherwise fun and light thread. It's just that we spend a lot of time here railing against the excesses of capitalism and how the environment is going down the crapper. Cheap factory raised meat is one of the glaring examples here. That's why I think it's important to point out the externalities. Cheap California meat comes at the expense of Midwestern clean water. Just like my $20 jeans come at the expense of some poor slave-wage earner in some unknown country.

I'm also not trying to get holier than thou on anyone here. I'm a meat eater. My wife and I have gone to considerable effort over the past 10 years to try to eat humanely raised, environmentally responsible meat, and it's almost impossible in America right now. Cheap meat is everywhere. We're not puritans on this issue by any means, just trying.
Cooper I agree. I do the shopping and I try to buy meats, Beef, Pork and Chicken from the most humane raised conditions. Even the Eggs I buy I try to avoid the caged products.

I do believe the Federal Government should be the ones that control how the Factory Farms and the Processing plants are regulated especially for animal care and hygiene and safety for the animals and workers.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: Bacon May Disappear In California As Pig Law Takes Effect

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cooper wrote: Sun Aug 01, 2021 10:35 am I don't mean to be the "woke" asshole on an otherwise fun and light thread. It's just that we spend a lot of time here railing against the excesses of capitalism and how the environment is going down the crapper. Cheap factory raised meat is one of the glaring examples here. That's why I think it's important to point out the externalities. Cheap California meat comes at the expense of Midwestern clean water.
Absolutely, California does not have enough water. They steal it from other places.
And from the humane aspect, if you can't fucking raise pigs humanely, then do without ya damn bacon.
Last edited by Hiker on Sun Aug 01, 2021 11:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
All religions united with government are more or less inimical to liberty. All, separated from government, are compatible with liberty.-Henry Clay
Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms.—Aristotle

Re: Bacon May Disappear In California As Pig Law Takes Effect

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That AP article HuffPost reprinted is all over TV news channels.

This is from an April 2021 Bloomberg article.
California wants pigs to have more living space, and that could make pork a lot more expensive for the residents of the state — and even bring the threat of a shortage.

Oral arguments took place in a California court this week over a new regulation that will make it mandatory starting next year for pork sold in the state to come from breeding pigs that have at least 24 square feet of living space.

California residents eat about 15% of the pork consumed in the U.S. But most of that meat comes from producers in the Midwest and Southeast. And right now, only about 4% of U.S. breeding pigs, known as sows, live in that much space, according to Christine McCracken, a senior animal protein analyst at Rabobank.

The bottom line is that hog producers in places like Iowa will either have to change how they farm, or miss out on selling meat to a major market. The National Pork Producers Council is suing over the law, with a ruling expected in mid-summer.

“If you’re flush with cash, you can build a new facility,” said Michael Formica, general counsel of the NPPC. “For everyone else, they are going to lose access to this market.”

If not enough farmers change their facilities, the planned law could create a pork deficit for California, according to Rabobank’s McCracken.

Unless California delays or makes adjustments to the regulation, “they’re going to see a significant disruption in their local pork markets,” McCracken said by phone.

At the same time, if loads of hog producers start building new facilities to comply with the law, those expenses could get passed on to all U.S. consumers through meat inflation.

The North American Meat Institute has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for a review, stating it would “hurt the nation’s food value chain by significantly increasing costs for producers and consumers.”

Proponents of the regulation say industry opposition is “out of touch.”

The new rule “seems very basic: Allowing the animals enough room to turn around, to give pigs a bit of space,” said Josh Balk, vice president of farm animal protection at the Humane Society of the United States. “Ordinary Americans view this practice as animal cruelty. It’s simply not sustainable.”

The hog industry has started moving away from constricting cages known as gestation crates that prevent sows from being able to turn around. But most animals still are in individual stalls with 13 square feet of space, or in group pens with about 16 feet per animal, according to Formica of the NPPC.

There’s still a lot of uncertainty over the regulation, because California hasn’t issued its final guidelines yet.

“The uncertainty has put all U.S. pork producers in a challenging position,” said Jen Sorenson, president of the NPPC.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newslett ... california

It means higher prices for Californian's who eat any pork products and will definitely impact California's Asian community. That too could impact Newsom's recall election.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Bacon May Disappear In California As Pig Law Takes Effect

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I agree with all that is expressed above. But I also thought along the lines of Cooper and wondered why the slant of this article puts the onus of the law on voters and the government for its impact on consumers. It is a good example of just how journalism can color any article based on the writer’s intent, and there is little that qualifies as “pure news”.
"It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence. There is hope for a violent man to become non-violent. There is no such hope for the impotent." -Gandhi

Re: Bacon May Disappear In California As Pig Law Takes Effect

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Bisbee wrote: Sun Aug 01, 2021 2:02 pm I agree with all that is expressed above. But I also thought along the lines of Cooper and wondered why the slant of this article puts the onus of the law on voters and the government for its impact on consumers. It is a good example of just how journalism can color any article based on the writer’s intent, and there is little that qualifies as “pure news”.
I guess the most unbiased online news and pure news would be NPR or of all things the Christian Science Monitor.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: Bacon May Disappear In California As Pig Law Takes Effect

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Bisbee wrote: Sun Aug 01, 2021 2:02 pm It is a good example of just how journalism can color any article based on the writer’s intent, and there is little that qualifies as “pure news”.
Yes, journalism has a huge impact and they've gone from pure/objective reporting of news to news advocacy and it's crossed a line. CNN, MSNBC, Fox and others do it and that's not reporting news it's fashioning and advocating for different sides. Newsmax, OANN, Breitbart...I don't even classify as news sources, they're pure advocacy sites.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Bacon May Disappear In California As Pig Law Takes Effect

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I really like bacon, but I seldom buy it any more, well in the last 7 years. My "better half" don't care for it, so I stopped buying it and cooking it. But if we go out for breakfast, I usually order a side of bacon for a treat, so to speak. I guess if they stopped selling bacon in Maine, I will be just fine:) I worked on a hog farm when in high school, and know how the pigs are raised and treated, its pretty sad actually.

Re: Bacon May Disappear In California As Pig Law Takes Effect

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TrueTexan wrote: Sun Aug 01, 2021 2:56 pm
Bisbee wrote: Sun Aug 01, 2021 2:02 pm I agree with all that is expressed above. But I also thought along the lines of Cooper and wondered why the slant of this article puts the onus of the law on voters and the government for its impact on consumers. It is a good example of just how journalism can color any article based on the writer’s intent, and there is little that qualifies as “pure news”.
I guess the most unbiased online news and pure news would be NPR or of all things the Christian Science Monitor.
If you want real world wide news this also fits the bill as I mentioned before. https://www.aljazeera.com/live/

Leave it to a small Arabic country to do news the way CNN used to be.
According to The Atlantic magazine, Al Jazeera presents a far more moderate, Westernized face than Islamic jihadism or rigid Sunni orthodoxy and though the network has been criticized as "an 'Islamist' stalking horse", it actually features "very little specifically religious content in its broadcasts
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,”

Re: Bacon May Disappear In California As Pig Law Takes Effect

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From an article last December.
The North America Meat Institute (NAMI) is likely to file a writ of certiorari for U.S. Supreme Court review of California’s Proposition 12, which the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has repeatedly declined to hear.

Passed by California’s largely urban voters in November 2018, Prop 12 imposes space requirements regarding breeding pigs and veal calves within California.

In its quest, NAMI had the support of the Department of Justice on behalf of the United States and the Attorney Generals of 20 state attorney generals in seeking rehearing of the issue by the 9th Circuit, which was un-moved.

“California’s Proposition 12 bans the sale of wholesome pork and veal imported into California if farmers in other states and countries do not comply with the unprecedented animal-confinement requirements adopted by California,” attorneys for NAMI explained. “This trade barrier patently violates the Commerce Clause and interstate federalism because it (1) regulates commerce outside of California’s borders, (2) protects California farmers from out-of-state competition, and (3) imposes massive burdens on interstate commerce that vastly exceed any local benefits.”

NAMI sought review en banc, meaning with the participation of all 9th Circuit judges rather than the usual partial panel “because it disregards controlling Supreme Court precedent and conflicts with decisions of this Circuit and other circuits.”

According to NAMI, extraterritorial regulation is limited by the Supreme Court, which has held that “states and localities may not attach restrictions to exports or imports in order to control commerce in other States.”

Without the requested en banc review, the 9th Circuit “renders this bedrock principle a dead letter in the Circuit by holding that it applies only to ‘price control or price affirmation statute.’ ”
NAMI does not challenge California’s regulation of animal confinement within its own borders.
https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2020/12/ ... rt-review/

A 9th Circuit panel unanimously rejected that argument, two of the circuit judges on the panel were well known conservative women appointed by W. And an en banc hearing was denied.

NAMI petitioned SCOTUS for cert and the petition was denied. They'll have to come up with new legal arguments or live with it.

I looked back at the original ballot proposition and LAO estimated it will cost CA $10 million a year to administer it. CA is rolling in money, the super majority can raise taxes any time they want.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/Search.asp ... -1215.html
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

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