Prop 12 Was a Landmark Animal Rights Law. Repealing it Could Hurt Farmers.
California’s Prop 12 made it illegal to sell pork that had been raised in gestation crates in the state. But if the next Farm Bill repeals this law, farmers could end up paying the price.
Russ Kremer of True Story Foods on his farm. Photography courtesy of True Story Foods.
Hank Wurtz is a hog farmer in northwest Missouri. Before him, his father and grandfather were hog farmers. He’s raising his kids within the business as well.
“It’s always been part of what we do,” he says.
In 2018, California voters passed Prop 12, one of the most notable animal welfare laws in recent history. One of the key components of Prop 12, which went into full effect in January 2024, is that it prohibits the use of gestation crates (which are used in conventional hog farming) for pork to be sold in California. Instead, sows must be given 24 square feet per animal to move around. In gestation crates, also known as sow stalls, sows can stand up but not turn around. They cannot walk or move around. Temple Grandin, a well-known and reputable animal rights researcher, has famously compared it to a human living their entire life in an airplane seat.
For Wurtz, this was all he’d ever known. His hogs were raised in these stalls, as were his father’s before him. But he felt interested in Prop 12 because, if his farm could be compliant, he could sell his pork at a premium, leading to a more viable business for him and his family.
He is part of a group of 12 farming families that together invested $11.6 million to become Prop 12 compliant. No more gestation crates on his farm—all his sows enjoy more space. He makes a premium for his pork in California. He makes his debt payments. His pigs are better off, and so is he.
“We’re not animal activists, we’re just farmers,” he says.
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While animal welfare activists had lauded Prop 12, the law drew a strong negative reaction from some members of the pork industry. The House Farm Bill reflected their complaints, including language originally from the EATS Act that specifically targets the pork industry. This language would make it illegal for a state to put requirements on how hogs in other states must be raised.
If passed, the Farm Bill would essentially walk back Prop 12, making the welfare requirements irrelevant. More than that, it would inhibit the ability of any state to make local laws about hog welfare as it affects interstate commerce.
As Wurtz knows, though, this isn’t only an animal rights issue. Farmers like him who have already invested in becoming Prop 12 compliant will be left in the lurch—holding a competitive edge for a market that could deflate overnight.
“We all put in absolutely everything we had,” he says. “This has the potential to bankrupt us.”
Joining together
Wurtz’s farm is one of hundreds of registered distributors who are Prop 12 compliant to sell in California, and it is one of more than 75 hog farms that sell to True Story Foods. True Story Foods was founded by Phil Gatto and Russ Kremer.
“I’m a lifelong farmer, [a] fifth-generation pig farmer from Osage County, Missouri,” says Kremer, now head of farm partnerships. “That’s all I ever wanted to do.”
A few decades ago, long before Prop 12 came about, Kremer started a cooperative with several other farmers who were “passionate about raising pigs the right way, in a very humane nature, producing pork that was good for consumers,” he says. After he met Gatto in 2007, this cooperative became the network of farms supplying what they called True Story Foods.
All of the farms that supply True Story Foods are gestation crate-free, meaning the pigs are always able to walk and turn around, simple things that aren’t possible in gestation crates. When Prop 12 was passed in California, True Story Foods was poised to meet demands. Prop 12 has commonly been framed as a burden on the industry, but Gatto sees it as the opposite.
“It opens up the opportunity for a marketplace they did not have before,” says Gatto. “We were finding out that, in California and Massachusetts, consumers are looking for welfare, but they’re also willing to pay a little premium, or a reasonable premium for that welfare.”
Going to Washington
The National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) has been strongly and publicly against Prop 12. Although the council didn’t respond to Modern Farmer’s requests for comment, itswebsite states that Prop 12 is a burden on small farmers who can’t make the changes, and it enables factory farms that can.
“Large companies can afford the cost burdens of Prop 12—but small family farmers will be crushed by it,” says the NPPC website. “Prop 12 will lead to consolidation, with bigger, corporate interests gaining a larger piece of the industry.”
The council’s resistance to Prop 12 made its way all the way up to the Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments for the case in 2022, in National Pork Producers Council v. Ross. There, representation for the NPPC argued that Prop 12 unfairly increases the burden on producers, but the Supreme Court justices decided that the burden of compliance was not any greater for other states than it is for California.
In the end, the Supreme Court ruled affirming the constitutionality of Prop 12. Now, it all comes down to the Farm Bill, the current version of which expired on September 30, 2024.
Because Prop 12 deals with the humane treatment of animals, it is largely thought of as an issue championed by animal rights groups. True Story Foods argues that this is also an issue of farmer livelihood.
“This isn’t necessarily an animal rights issue where people from urban areas are coming in and trying to tell farmers back in the Midwest how to raise hogs,” says Kremer. “This is a response from producers that say ‘I love raising hogs, and I love raising them the right way.’”
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For farmers like Wurtz, who’ve adapted their operations to be Prop 12 compliant, EATS Act language in the Farm Bill could hurt their business. Brand manager McKiernan Flaherty of True Story Foods says they can see the danger to many of the farms with which they work.
“I think just within our farms that we have that are across Iowa, South Dakota, Missouri, and Nebraska, we’re going to see that absolutely occur. A lot of these farmers are in communities that are in rural parts of America where farming is really one of a few industries that is maybe supporting that community and is really the backbone of that community. So, not only will those farmers be affected, but one of the few industries that is keeping individuals in that community will then lose viability.”
Although so much of Prop 12’s history has been framed as animal rights activists versus farmers, the way this legislation has played out has made it clear that those lines are not actually true.
“We’re presenting the dissenting voice within the pork industry,” says Holly Bice, president and founder of Bice Policy Group, part of the True Story Foods team.
“We’re the pork industry, and we’re for Prop 12.”
While I believe in the abolition of farming and slaughtering animals, I applaud any attempt to improve animal welfare for farmed animals. That said, the photo of the Prop 12-compliant farm provided by True Story Foods does not look like a healthy, humane, or “natural” environment for pigs to live their lives in. Better than gestation crates, but still a far cry from good.
Raising pigs outside is not the right way.Gestational crates might not be the greatest and i dont like them. The problem with raising pigs outside is bird Flu and swine flu passing back-and-forth between humans,birds and hogs. The conclusion is a form of virus that’s very deadly.,..That’s why they have so much trouble with birds and hogs and people in places like Mexico,China other third world countries raising pigs outside. It might make the animal activist feel better.It might be touchy feely but that doesn’t mean it’s right… It’s not healthy for the humans nor for the pigs..
Seems to me like their initial take on Prop 12 ended up being a huge positive for the Pork industry and congress just isn’t having that. Do the most to make all the changes just to turn around and take back their words. Meanwhile, farmers have already invested their whole life savings and some to make the changes happen. These animals are now living more humane than they ever had. Why change anything that is progressively benefitting the animal, the farmer and its community? This is silly.
I have been making this very argument for over a year, and that the Wurtz operation (and others) have seen this as an opportunity to provide a PREMIUM product, raised at a higher standard, and targeting specific markets is so encouraging. This OPPORTUNITY that the NPPC is fighting simply ignores a whole new marketing approach.