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Local pork producers frustrated about recent Supreme Court ruling

Iowa pork producers must follow California's Proposition 12, or risk losing out on sales to a state that consumes 13% of the nation's pork.

CLIVE, Iowa — A Supreme Court ruling about pork sales in California is making an impact here in Iowa.

Back in 2018, California passed a law called Proposition 12, which requires pork producers to provide breeding pigs at least 24 square feet of floor space in order to sell in the state. 

The Supreme Court upheld the law last week, frustrating many local pork producers.

“While the Constitution addresses many weighty issues, the type of pork chops California merchants may sell is not on that list,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in an opinion for the court.

The National Pork Producers Council argued to the Supreme Court that Prop 12 places an undue burden on them, since California imports far more pork than it raises itself. 

The Supreme Court disagreed.

"The court looked at this and said, 'you know, we've seen other examples of this. There's no discriminatory sort of intent or impact, because it applies evenly across any pork producer that's going to sell in the state, in state or out of state,'" said Jennifer Zwagerman, director of Drake University's Agricultural Law Center.

The ruling puts many pork producers in a difficult spot. If they don't update their barns to provide the required living space for pigs—a potentially costly renovation—they're losing out on sales to a state that consumes 13% of the nation's pork.

"Every farm is going to have to have discussions with their packer or whoever is buying the meat off of their farm and see what kind of guidelines or rules those folks are going to put forth onto the farmers that are raising the pigs that go into their supply chain," said Trish Cook, president of the Iowa Pork Producers Association.

And the impacts of the Supreme Court's ruling could go far beyond the pig pen. The case centered around questions about what types of restrictions states are able to put on interstate commerce and experts say the ruling could be used to justify laws based more in ethics than economics.

"Can a state ban products that were produced by child labor? Can we do it if it's produced by agricultural workers that we argue don't receive a fair or living wage?" Zwagerman said.

There's at least some Americans celebrating the Prop 12 ruling—animal rights groups. Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action, said in a statement that the ruling is "...a loss for hog factory farmers and a win for the vast majority of Americans who want to know that animals raised for food were not immobilized and otherwise tormented in production.” 

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