“On The Holmes Front,” with Frank Holmes
If the price of bacon is rising, it may not be inflation alone at work.
It could be California’s fault instead!
The Golden State passed a ballot initiative that would place strict conditions on how pigs for pork are raised – and the repercussions could leave consumers across the nation squealing in pain.
But first, this increasingly bitter battle over bacon could head to the Supreme Court.
Here’s the issue: Californians, according to Reason magazine, consume about 13 percent of the nation’s pork products.
Yet the state produces only 0.3 percent, almost none of it.
So when it set rules on how pork must be raised to be legally sold in California supermarkets based on a ballot initiative called Proposition 12, it was essentially setting rules for other states, not itself.
“Because the Constitution gives Congress sole authority to regulate interstate commerce, that doctrine says, states are prohibited from imposing rules on businesses beyond their own borders,” Reason explained. “It certainly seems like Prop. 12 is an attempt to do that.”
If the California law stands, farmers in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, and North Carolina – which are responsible for 70 percent of the nation’s pork – would be faced with a stark choice.
They will either have to create conditions that comply with California’s Proposition 12, which requires 24 feet of usable space per pig, or abandon the California market completely.
The farming magazine Hoard’s Dairyman said some companies are already limiting what they send to California as a result of the new law.
However, most big producers don’t want to sacrifice sales in the nation’s largest state.
That could have a domino effect as the meat market is complicated by the fact that pigs raised in one place are processed in another… and the product that’s ultimately packaged and shipped out could come from multiple locations, and go out to multiple locations.
It’s not set up to track and separate pork for just for one state.
Many companies will likely comply by changing their entire operation so all of its pork is raised according to California’s standards.
And that could lead to pain at the cash register.
Barry Goodwin, an economist at North Carolina State University, told the Associated Press last year the new rules would increase costs by 15 percent per pig. AP noted that analysis by the Hatamiya Group found supply shortages due to the new rules could lead to price jumps of as much as 60 percent in California.
A different analysis cited by a columnist at The Washington Post suggested the long-term impact would be more modest, raising prices by 8 percent in California.
But when combined with inflationary price increases, bacon could end up being out of reach for some – and not just in California if pork producers end up revamping their entire operations as a result of the new law.
The ongoing dispute is attracting the attention of the U.S. Senate, where Republicans are vowing new legislation to counteract California’s law.
“It shouldn’t be up to California to tell other states how they should be producing their agricultural products,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, told WNAX.
“California is not only being unfair to its own consumers but to producers in other states and is likely violating the U.S. Constitution with Proposition 12.”
But they’re currently out of power, and even if the GOP retakes control over Congress after the mid-term elections, it seems unlikely for President Joe Biden to sign anything that they pass.
That leaves the Supreme Court, which has not yet decided if it will hear the case.
But consumer groups, farming concerns and restaurant organizations are all no doubt hoping the high court will take it up – and soon, before it leads to expensive and permanent changes to the nation’s pork supply.
Or, as Reason put it: “The question for the Supreme Court is whether the rest of the country should have to comply with a policy approved by 7.5 million voters in a single state.”
Frank Holmes is a veteran journalist and an outspoken conservative that talks about the news that was in his weekly article, “On The Holmes Front.”