Those Californians are your customers

The U.S. Supreme Court cut sows some slack last week, which caused a lot of squealing around Iowa where we forget that the customer comes first.

The high court on a 5-4 vote last Thursday upheld Proposition 12, a 2018 California ballot initiative that drew 63% voter support, demanding that gestating sows be allowed room to turn around. Prop 12 also called for cage-free poultry production and more space for veal calves.

The lawsuit was brought by the American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Pork Producers Council of Ankeny. They said they would evaluate their next steps.

Next steps should be getting with the program and responding to consumer concerns. It’s not clear that message got through to Hull.

“California liberals have no jurisdiction over how Iowa farmers raise our hogs,” Rep. Randy Feenstra declared.

Justice Neal Gorsuch is not exactly Nancy Pelosi. Yet, he noted in writing for the majority: “While the constitution addresses many weighty issues, the type of pork chops California merchants may sell is not on that list.”

The poultry industry largely adapted to cage-free production years ago when McDonald’s demanded it based on consumer preference. The pork industry failed to heed the warnings and chose instead to fight the will of the people of California.

Iowa is the leading purveyor of pork in the giant California market. The pork complex generally claims the costs of 24-foot gestation stalls will be catastrophic. Meatpackers were somewhat restrained. Hormel, for one, reported that complying with California production standards will have no material effect on the company’s bottom line. Tyson said it will comply.

The California electorate is not 63% liberal. It is a bellwether because of the sheer size of the Golden State economy. Voters were well aware potentially higher pork costs, and they were equally cognizant of threats to animal and human health from piling more livestock on top of more livestock.

Iowans are similarly aware, consistently voting for cleaner water while being rebuffed by legislators and agri-industry. The legislature continues to pass ag gag laws because they don’t like the picture of hogs jammed into confinement. They know what their nose tells them — that this is about enough already. Yet more hogs keep coming.

The court’s ruling will require retrofitting of old sow facilities and will reduce throughput at the margins. It will not put swine feeders on the rocks. It will force the industry to change with consumer demand. We were told that we needed consistent, lean hogs of a certain structure because of consumer taste, when in fact it was to standardize the carcass for more efficient processing.

This is real consumer action at the ballot box.

The court challenges the notion that the livestock industry can sneer at regulations and rationalize its excesses.

Not a single independent pork producer will be affected. Whatever is left of them. They did not depend on locking a sow down. They performed husbandry in the farrowing house. That costs more. Lord forbid that a producer with 30 sows might gain a foothold.

A hog house can be put darn near anywhere. They still plan to lay in 11,000 cattle next to Bloody Run, a trout stream in eastern Iowa, once the Iowa Department of Natural Resources figures out its own manure rules under court order. You can spread noxious chicken manure all around anytime you like. Even Iowans bristle at it. They know down deep that the system isn’t quite right.

But it is powerful. The Biden Administration joined with the pork integrators to oppose Proposition 12 before the high court. The split was interesting, with liberal and conservative justices on each side. Gorsuch indicated that another appeal of Proposition 12 could be made successfully, but this one was flawed. Eventually, when the industry gets off its arrogance hangover, it will figure out that the customer is always right. Or, at least, that the supreme court has ruled. Let’s get on with raising hogs the way our customers actually want.

Art Cullen is the publisher and editor of the Storm Lake Times Pilot. He won the the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing in 2017 and is the author of the book “Storm Lake: A Chronicle of Change, Resilience, and Hope from a Heartland Newspaper.” Cullen can be reached at times@stormlake.com.