A battle over bacon is headed to the Supreme Court with major stakes for farmers, pregnant pigs and the prices Americans pay at the grocery store.
The nation's $20-billion pork industry is asking the justices to strike down
Gestation crates, or sow stalls, that confine female pigs during breeding and pregnancy are widely used across the pork industry. California's Proposition 12 would ban the crates and the sale of pork from farms that use them.Most American pork is produced in facilities like Boerboom's that do not meet Prop 12 standards, according to the National Pork Producers Council. The typical farm affords 16-18 square-feet per pig.
Kitty Block, president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States, says confinement of thousands of pregnant pigs on pork farms is cruel treatment and harmful to human health.say it will cost billions of dollars to retool their operations to comply with California's law, resulting in less efficient and environmentally sustainable production of one of the most popular meats in America.
Some independent economists have also warned that Prop 12 could lead to pork price inflation at grocery stores, especially in California. Jerry Coelho, owner of Terra Linda Farms in Riverdale, Calif., raises several hundred pigs in conditions that comply with Prop 12. His gestation crates allow sows to come and go freely."Other states might well condition in-state sales on even more square feet of space per hog, or on compliance with requirements concerning animals' feed, veterinary care, or virtually any other aspect of animal husbandry," U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote in.
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