California's Proposition 12 Viewed as a Step Back for Animal Welfare

The President Elect of the National Pork Producers Council suggests, rather than improving animal welfare, changes that will come about as a result of California's Proposition 12 will set animal welfare back.

Last week the National Pork Producers Council hosted a roundtable to discuss California's Proposition 12 and update the media on the NPPC-National Farm Bureau Federation's Supreme court challenge of the legislation scheduled to be heard October 11.Scott Hays, a pork producer from Monroe City, Missouri and the President Elect of the NPPC, says, as a fifth-generation farmer, his family considers the California law a step backwards in animal care.

Clip-Scott Hays-National Pork Producers Council:

We've spent well over a century raising pigs on the same farm and I vividly remember conversations with my Dad and Grandpa about pigs and how we can make their life better.It's just known in our family, if the pigs do well we do well.

At one point my Dad and Grandpa built some feeding stalls in dirt lots when pigs were outside because the aggressive behavior of pigs especially around feeding time.It didn't work but they tried.

We're very frustrated about the animal welfare part of this thing.Like I said, we're five generations deep in raising pigs and now we have some folks that know nothing about raising pigs, or very little about raising pigs coming to our farm and telling us how it should be done.

We've done it that way because that's the only way we could do 50-60 years ago.It doesn't work so we're very frustrated.

We feel like we're going backward in animal care.I hope you understand our frustration because it's not the way we want to take care of the animals.

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the case October 11th. Although the Supreme Court has no deadline for bringing down its decision, a ruling is expected by January-February 2023 or by the spring of 2023.