By Seth Millstein for Sentient.
Broadcast version by Suzanne Potter for California News Service reporting for the Sentient-Public News Service Collaboration
In 2018, California voters passed the strongest animal protection law in the country, and it’s been under near-constant attack ever since. After surviving a Supreme Court challenge and multiple legislative assaults, Proposition 12 now faces a new threat: the Food Security & Farm Protection Act, a new piece of legislation that was announced last week.
The GOP-sponsored bill is explicitly aimed at undoing Proposition 12, which requires farmers to give certain livestock animals a specific amount of space on their facilities. However, experts say that it could also potentially threaten over 1,000 public health, safety and welfare laws across the country.
While the Food Security & Farm Protection Act itself is new, the approach to undoing Prop 12 isn’t. “This has been the Big Ag playbook for quite a while, and it’s taken various legislative forms,” Rebecca Wolf, senior food policy analyst at the nonprofit Food and Water Watch, tells Sentient. “Big Ag doesn’t want to be told what to do by states, and so it puts Republicans in a really interesting position that puts them between Big Ag and more of a states’ rights framework.”
But some Republicans strongly oppose this latest attempt to repeal Proposition 12, and so do a lot of farmers. Politics makes for strange bedfellows, and the fight over Proposition 12 is a perfect illustration of why.
Proposition 12, Explained
Initially passed by California voters in 2018, Proposition 12 is a state law that regulates the conditions in which certain livestock are reared, and additionally, the type of livestock products that can be sold in the state. Both components of the law are centered on how much room the animals are given to live.
Proposition 12 imposes minimum space requirements for breeding pigs, egg-laying hens and veal calves. Breeding pigs must be given at least 24 square feet of floor space, while egg-laying hens must be given between 1 and 1.5 square feet of space, depending on the type of housing system. Veal calves are required to be given 43 square feet of space.
In addition, Proposition 12 requires that all food sold in the state of California adheres to the above requirements, even if it was produced in another state. Because California is such an enormous market for eggs and pork, this second provision has resulted in many out-of-state producers, including some in other countries, adapting to Proposition 12’s requirements.
Although Proposition 12 is widely regarded as the strongest animal welfare law in the country, there’s a lot that it doesn’t do. The law’s protections don’t apply to chickens raised for meat, for instance, or cattle, nor does it place any restrictions on how the animals are slaughtered. In addition, Proposition 12 doesn’t regulate tail-docking, beak trimming and many other practices that are commonplace on factory farms but not strictly related to living space.
The Fight to Repeal Proposition 12
The Food Security and Farm Protection Act is the most recent attempt to scrap Proposition 12, but it’s definitely not the first.
The King Amendment
Way back in 2013, before Proposition 12 was even on the ballot, Rep. Steve King proposed an amendment to that year’s farm bill that would have banned states from imposing their own restrictions on the in-state sale of agricultural products produced out of state. This was in response to earlier state laws that enacted such restrictions, such as California’s Proposition 2.
Ultimately, Congress didn’t include the King Amendment in that year’s farm bill. But King resurrected his amendment five years later, as California voters were preparing to weigh in on Proposition 12. As with the previous attempt, it was initially approved in committee; months later, however, California voters approved Proposition 12, and one month after that, the King Amendment was defeated on the House floor.
The Supreme Court Case
The next year, several meat industry lobbying groups sued to overturn Proposition 12, including the North American Meat Institute and, in a separate lawsuit, the National Pork Producers Council and the American Farm Bureau Federation. The former suit was quickly defeated, but the latter made its way up to the Supreme Court.
These trade groups argued that Proposition 12 was unconstitutional on two grounds. First, they claimed that it violated a legal doctrine known as the dormant commerce clause. This is the idea that, because the Constitution allows Congress to regulate interstate commerce, states can’t pass laws that substantially encroach on this congressional duty.
The plaintiffs also argued that the purported benefits of Proposition 12 to Californians didn’t outweigh the economic burden that it placed on other states’ economic interests. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court rejected both arguments, and Proposition 12 went into full effect in 2024.
The EATS Act
Perhaps in anticipation of this, Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas then introduced the EATS Act. It was essentially the same as the King Amendment, and followed a similar path: Republicans included it in their 2024 farm bill proposal, but it never passed or became law. This is largely because the 2024 farm bill itself never passed, but that’s another story entirely.
Although the EATS Act is kaput, many supporters of Proposition 12 still use “the EATS Act” as a colloquial way of referring to the most recent piece of legislation that would repeal the California law.
This time, it’s the Food Security & Farm Protection Act.
The Complicated Coalitions Behind Proposition 12
It might be tempting to assume that liberals support Proposition 12, and conservatives oppose it. But in practice, opinions on the law haven’t mapped neatly on to traditional partisan lines, and it’s drawn both support and opposition from some surprising places.
Animal Welfare Groups
Generally speaking, supporters of animal welfare and opponents of factory farming support Prop 12. The Humane Society, Animal Legal Defense Fund, ASPCA, Animal Welfare Institute, The Humane League and many other animal rights organizations have all gone to bat for the law, and so have a good number of climate and environmental organizations, such as the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth and National Sustainable Agriculture commission.
“We want to see the standards raised for all animals on factory farms, and we want to see a roll away from factory farms,” Wolf says.
And yet one of the most well-known animal rights groups, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), has opposed Proposition 12 from the start, and so has the Humane Farming Association (HFA). PETA’s position is that the law doesn’t go far enough and would be misleading to consumers, while HFA essentially doubted that Proposition 12 would be properly implemented.
Agricultural Lobbies & Farmers
On the other side, major agricultural lobbies have long opposed Proposition 12. This includes the National Pork Board as well as the Meat Institute, the American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Pork Producers’ Council. Smithfield Foods, the largest pork producer in America, has complained about Proposition 12 and suggested that it supports repeal, without stating so explicitly.
And yet despite this, many individual farmers support Proposition 12 for a variety of reasons. Some simply agree with the idea of giving farm animals a little bit more space, while others like that they can sell Proposition 12-compliant meat and eggs at a premium to welfare-minded customers. One farmer told Sentient last year that the law is “one of the best things, economically, that’s happened to us in a very long time.”
“Within the food and farm marketplace, there are places for producers to carve and make investments, and provide the product that the market is asking for,“ Wolf says. Proposition 12, she says, makes it easier for “independent producers [to] carve this niche, and form higher-welfare markets” for pork and eggs.
Why Republicans Are Divided on Attempts to Repeal Prop 12
All of the legislative attempts to repeal Proposition 12 have come from Republican lawmakers. And yet a surprising number of Republicans have come out in support of Proposition 12 — or at the very least, against the efforts to repeal it. This may sound like a small distinction, but it’s played a big role in shaping some folks’ opinion on the law, especially on the right.
In 2023, 16 House Republicans signed a letter declaring their opposition to the EATS Act and its inclusion in the farm bill. These lawmakers said that, while they didn’t necessarily support Proposition 12 itself, they very much did oppose the idea of the federal government overturning state laws, which is what the EATS Act, and now the Food Security & Farm Protection Act, would do.
“The EATS Act is a pretty draconian federal preemptive strategy that tells states how to regulate within their borders,” Wolf says. “That is pretty antithetical to a lot of the major talking points of the Republican Party.”
This is also the position of Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, a conservative Republican who opposes both Proposition 12 and the attempts to repeal it. In 2024, Miller wrote in an op-ed that, “while I don’t agree with Proposition 12, I’ll defend to my dying day California’s right to self-determination, and any state’s ability to use its constitutional authority as that state’s citizens best see fit.”
In addition to this reasoning, some conservative Republicans also support Proposition 12 because they see it as a bulwark against foreign influence over American farmland. This is largely because the biggest pork producer in America, Smithfield Foods, is owned by a Chinese company with strong ties to the Chinese government. China has scant animal welfare laws, but any meat that Smithfield’s parent company sells in California has to be Proposition 12-compliant.
Many conservatives oppose Smithfield’s Chinese ownership, seeing it as a threat to national security, the livelihood of American farmworkers, and animal welfare. These concerns vary in terms of their validity, but regardless, 10 House Republicans signed a letter stating that they oppose the EATS Act on these grounds.
The Bottom Line
It’s far too soon to say what will come of the Food Security & Farm Protection Act. While Republicans have the majority in Congress, they’re divided enough on Prop 12 that attempts to overturn it are anything but certain. But like the EATS Act and the King amendment before it, the legislation’s mere existence is evidence of Proposition 12’s enormous impact on the farming sector. So, too, is the fact that it’s supported by such a wide variety of people, for so many different reasons.
“There’s a ton of these different conversations about the kind of food and farm system that we’re building,” Wolf says. “It’s not just about animal welfare standards, but the infrastructure under which food production happens today.”
Seth Millstein wrote this article for Sentient.
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Rising egg prices have some wondering if raising backyard chickens could save money, but experts warn that this may not be a money-saving option.
The ongoing outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza, a dangerous strain of bird flu, has resulted in the loss of more than 100 million hens nationwide.
Dr. Tom Tabler, poultry extension and research specialist at the University of Tennessee's Institute of Agriculture, said backyard chickens are a good idea but they're costly and won't save you money on eggs. He said they add many expenses and take time to start laying eggs.
"A chicken is not going to lay eggs till she becomes sexually mature, and that's going to be - depending on what breed of chicken that is - that's going to be somewhere between about 19 weeks of age and 24 weeks of age," he said. "If you get baby chicks, you're going to have to raise those chickens for six months before you start getting any eggs."
Tabler said those buying adult chickens should make sure they're disease-free. He recommended getting them from sellers in the National Poultry Improvement Plan, which follows standards to ensure the birds are healthy.
Tabler said egg prices have remained high because bird flu has killed about 168 million birds since 2022; around 100 million of them were egg-laying hens. More than half of those losses happened just between October 2024 and last February, right in the middle of the holiday baking season.
"I really don't expect egg prices to seriously come down until maybe next year at the earliest," he said, "because again, it's going to take time to replace the lost flocks, and if we continue to lose table egg flocks, later into the year, those birds also have to be replaced."
Tabler said there's no vaccine yet for bird flu, although some companies are working on one. He said the best defense is to keep birds isolated, limit human interaction and make sure they are in a clean and sanitary environment.
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By Grace Hussain for Sentient.
Broadcast version by Terri Dee for Indiana News Service reporting for the Sentient-Public News Service Collaboration
Egg producer Kipster recently announced it had failed to meet what was an ambitious goal - ending the practice of male chick culling in its U.S. supply chain, a practice responsible for culling six billion male chicks globally each year. The Dutch-based company had hoped to implement a technology called in-ovo sexing to eliminate this practice by fall of last year. But it hit a few roadblocks.
"We've been really trying hard to work with the technology provider and hatchery to get it to the United States," Sandra Vijn, who manages Kipster's U.S. operations, tells Sentient.
And there were other promising signs. Earlier this month, Walmart updated its animal welfare policies to prioritize "gendering innovation" within their egg supply chain, for instance. But the process is taking longer than expected.
Male chicks have long been considered a by-product by the egg industry because they don't lay eggs and they don't grow fast or large enough to compete with meat chickens. It's standard practice within the industry to kill them right after they hatch; approximately six billion male chicks are killed each year globally.
In-ovo technology eliminates the need to cull live, male chicks by determining whether the embryo developing inside the egg is male or female before they hatch. The male eggs are then discarded before they can finish developing. There are other alternative technologies being investigated by researchers too, like using genetic engineering to breed hens that only lay female eggs.
Still, the company is moving forward. Respeggt, a technology company that works with Kipster on the in-ovo technology, announced that their in-ovo sexing technology would be installed in the Nebraska hatchery that Kipster sources from this month. Vijn now expects to get sexed eggs from the hatchery sometime this summer. From there, it will take about 20 weeks for the hens to mature enough to start laying eggs, which the company expects to hit the market by late 2025.
Kipster Sees In-Ovo Sexing As a Temporary Solution
In-ovo sexing was not Kipster's first choice for the American market. The company wanted to take the production system that they use in the Netherlands - where male chicks are raised to be sold for meat - and replicate it in the U.S., says Vijn.
But that plan hit a snag. "We couldn't get a processor to work at the scale and price that we could afford," says Vijn. Instead of being sold for meat, the four flocks of adult roosters they had raised at their U.S. facility ended up being slaughtered, and their carcasses were donated to food banks.
For Vijn, raising male chicks for meat is preferable, as it cuts down on both waste and animal suffering. "We think that everything within our farm is a good source of food for people," she says. "With every rooster that can be eaten, there's less need to bring additional broiler chicks to life."
Ultimately, says Vijn, "we were looking at in-ovo as a temporary solution."
Satisfying the American Consumer
In the Netherlands, where Kipster was founded, consumers are willing to pay a premium for meat from chickens who had basic welfare accommodations - such as access to the outdoors - during their lives.
Since last year, all fresh chicken meat sold in Dutch grocery stores comes from slower-growth breeds of broiler chicken. Like their Dutch counterparts, consumers in the United States are also willing to pay extra for animal products - including up to 38 percent more for eggs according to a 2018 survey - that they believe were produced under higher welfare conditions.
A key difference between the two countries is that in the Netherlands, consumers buy and eat the rooster meat from layer chicken breeds, says Vijn. In Europe, Kipster also sells their spent hens - those who are no longer considered productive egg layers - for human consumption.
Consumers in the U.S. aren't so open to the idea, however. In the United States, the hens are sold for pet food.
In the U.S., Kipster raises Dekalb white chickens, a breed specifically bred to lay eggs, up to 500 in 100 weeks. Dekalb white chickens start laying eggs at around 18 weeks of age, weighing in at a little over 1300 grams.
Research has found that the high number of eggs they lay weakens their bones, making laying hens highly susceptible to bone fractures. Dekalb white chickens are especially vulnerable to these breaks.
Ultimately, the delay in bringing the technology to the United States came down to an issue of scale. Respeggt and Hendrix needed to know that there would be enough of a market for the sexed eggs. "The equipment we have is made to produce large numbers of female eggs, and acceptance from retail, and farmers took some time," Respeggt's representative told Sentient.
Sentient reached out directly to Neal Martin, General Manager of Hendrix ISA-U.S., a subsidiary of Hendrix Genetics, for comment and did not receive a reply.
For Kipster, adopting in-ovo technology remains a viable, albeit second-best option. "It really fits in our philosophy that we should be eating less eggs, less meat, less animal proteins," Vijn says, "but already use whatever is in the system so that we don't have to bring a life on earth just for the purpose of eating them."
Grace Hussain wrote this article for Sentient.
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