Hogs and Pigs have rights
Coming soon in Kalifornia
Bacon Apocalypse: How a California Law Could Raise Pork Prices Even Higher
Vance Cariaga
Mon, October 18, 2021, 9:27 AM
kitzcorner / Getty Images/iStockphoto
You might soon need to bring home a lot more bacon in order to literally bring home the bacon, as a new animal welfare law in California set to go into effect early next year will likely push pork prices much higher than they already are.
See: Kraft Heinz to Consumers on Inflation-Related Price Hikes: ‘Get Used to It’
Find: How To Beat Inflation at Costco and Other Grocery Stores
The law, which California voters overwhelmingly approved three years ago, will require more space for breeding pigs, egg-laying chickens and veal calves. Veal and egg producers sound confident they can meet the new standards, NPR reported over the summer. But only 4% of the nation’s hog operations now comply with the new rules.
Beginning on Jan. 1, pork products sold within California must meet standards that mother pigs are given at least 24 square feet of space each to help them move around. They must also be kept out of gestation crates, which are 7-by-2-foot stalls that severely restrict movement, CNN Business reported on Sunday.
Because so few pork producers currently meet that standard, they have sounded the alarm that the new law will hike costs throughout the supply chain. They also say consumers in California and elsewhere will be left with fewer and much more expensive pork options — including bacon, the smoky, salty breakfast staple that secured a place of near-worship among certain gourmands.
This in turn has created a sense of panic and doom — a “bacon apocalypse,” as some have called it. NPR even ran a headline back in August saying, “California’s New Animal Welfare Law Could Mean The End Of Bacon.”
Those sounds you hear are millions of tears sizzling on the griddle.
But some industry observers urge people to chill out, mainly because they don’t see the new law having the massive impact some fear.
As CNN Business noted, economists at the University of California-Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences estimate that the yearly costs to consumers in the Golden State will be about $320 million. That equals only $8 more per person. They further estimate that consumers in California will only cut their pork spending by around 6.3%.
The impact could be even less severe in the rest of the United States.
“There may be a brief period of disruption, but nothing like the apocalyptic predictions of significant long-term shortages or drastically higher prices,” Richard J. Sexton, distinguished professor of agricultural and resource economics at UC Davis, told CNN Business.
Comments
I read about this a month or so ago. My only question is, will the producers around the country refuse to meet the California demands and sell more to the other 49 states? If so that could mean the price of bacon and other cuts of Pork may come down. If that happens, I'll give the California greenie weenies my thanks. Bob
Yup, that's the simple solution to Kali insanity.
I anxiously await the shitshow that happens with this, their electrical problems, and their water shortage.
You just can't write better comedy as the Midwest tells them to get bent!
Throw in some Wild Fires,,, and the Big EarthQuake coming ... and HBO should be good to go to run a series of shows.
Dad and I raised hogs when I was young -- that's how I paid for my Mountie ($89 back then😁)
That law just shows how little some folks know about hogs.
We kept our sows in "farrowing crates" just big enough for them to stand up and lay down while their pigs were small.
The crates were to keep them from laying down or walking on the small pigs.
Even after the pigs were bigger bigger -- the size of a small/medium dog -- there was a problem with sows laying on their pigs.
I heard squealing one after noon and had to go kick a sow until she got up -- she'd laid on one of her pigs and was ignoring it until I started applying my steel-toed boot to her hams. Took several kicks to get her up and pig on his feet.
That sow was a Durock ; we started raising Hampshires (black with white shoulder stripe) and those sows were on their feet and looking for trouble if one of their pigs squealed. We were real careful if we were in the pen with pigs and sows.
This is what happens within a state with an overwhelming DEMOCRAT supermajority. Problem is these idiots with their good intentions never consider the consequences.
Eff em. I'll be happy to eat their share.
^^^^^^^^^^
THIS!
Hampshires were no joke . In one pasture it took two of us to feed and check the hogs . One to do the work and one as a bodyguard from the sows . Durocher were easy and gentle.
They also can cut the pork spending in washington
With a hog barn exactly 1 mile south of us, and another within 3 miles, and countless others just in our county, I'm not worried about a bacon shortage.
Joe
do you folks actually think the federal government will not step in and bail Calif. out of whatever mess they get into, using our money of course. remember "To Big To Fail".
...Not in Texas...wild hogs, NOT Javelinas, moved up from south Texas thru North Texas several years ago...sure they have spread far north of here by now...they can do a LOT of damage to a pasture overnight, kill all we see, piglets too, a pregnant sow is a bonus...big ones are worthless to eat, but the Buzzards like 'em...
Not here yet, but I'm guessing they'll be here sometime, in SW Iowa
Why do we allow California to effect interstate commerce? It's illegal. That's the Feds job.
Pig Lives Matter. Cow Farts Splatter. Internal Combustion Scatters. Red Meat Tatter's. Californians Blather!
All I can come up with is that there is something in the POT they are smoking out there on the left coast.