Posted on 03/08/2014 11:22:49 AM PST by SeekAndFind
In 2008, California voters endorsed Proposition 2 which banned the confinement of animals. California egg producers had to ensure that chickens had enough room to move around which negated so-called “factory farming” and would end up raising the price of eggs by 20%.
Obviously this was a problem for California agriculture which would have trouble competing on price with free agriculture. And there’s only so much of a market for fair-trade free-range organic chickens lovingly raised in a Quaker school by social justice experts on a strict diet of granola and NPR broadcasts.
And so California’s reds decided to instead raise the price of eggs across America. Sounds fair, right?
Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster (D) said Tuesday morning he has filed a federal lawsuit against the state of California over the Golden State’s new regulations on enclosures that house egg-laying hens. The regulations, Koster alleges, violate the constitution’s Commerce Clause.
California voters in 2008 passed a ballot initiative that require larger enclosures for egg-laying hens. Farmers in California worried the new rules, which would increase their costs, would put them at a competitive disadvantage with egg farms in other states, so the state legislature passed a measure in 2010 to require out-of-state producers to comply with California rules.
That, Koster says, is unfair to his state’s egg producers.
“If California legislators are permitted to mandate the size of chicken coops on Missouri farms, they may just as easily demand that Missouri soybeans be harvested by hand or that Missouri corn be transported by solar-powered trucks,” Koster said in a statement.
California farmers must begin complying with the cage law beginning in 2015, under the terms of Proposition 2. The legislature requires out-of-state farmers to begin complying with the same rules by the end of that year.
Koster’s office estimated that Missouri egg producers would have to pay $120 million to expand the size of their coops, and that production costs would rise 20 percent.”
That’s the whole point. The left can’t compete on product or price, but it can kneecap everyone else as long as it has control over populous states. Businesses and individuals can flee California, but they can’t escape its regulatory creep.
The country is awash in ballot initiatives and legislative efforts to increase regulation of agriculture. Maine and Connecticut have passed GMO labeling laws, although they won’t go into effect until other states in the Northeast have passed labeling laws as well. Florida has laws outlawing the most common method of pork production. Several states have outlawed small chicken coops, and states have also banned the sale of foie gras and shark fins. Only California has had the chutzpah to impose the preferences of that state’s voters on the rest of the country.
Make no mistake about it, if egg prices increase by 20 percent, people who face tight budgets at the grocery store will suffer.
But the people who make these laws won’t and California voters have become mindless stooges of the left. And if you buy your eggs with EBT cards, you don’t tend to care how much they cost because you aren’t paying for them anyway.
Men are supposed to treat animals with a modicum of respect before they kill them and eat them. I don’t think this is as much a liberal versus conservative issue as it is a humanitarian issue.
Caging chickens 24 hours a day for their entire lives, just doesn’t seem to me to be the way that God intended that these creatures be treated. God gave men Men stewardship over the beasts of the field, but that does not give men the moral right to abuse them.
Yes the cost of eggs has gone up, but it never affected me because I always bought cage free eggs. And guess what, the price of cage free eggs has gone down!
That can't be right. Unless EBT allowances are raised, these requirements mean that food stamp users get less food for their EBT dollar.
Yep, the article mentions Florida and pork production. Several years ago, the FL constitution had Amendment X added which gave pregnant pigs rights. My question at that time was, how can you tell if a pig is pregnant or just fat? Shouldn’t there be a state agency running around giving pregnancy tests to piga to make sure their rights aren’t being violated. (With sarcasm in my voice, of course.). My solution was “Let’s just eat ‘em instead”.
I agree with you there. Why do we allow the liberals to take the high road in matters such as this? No conservative that I know would go for animals being abused in any way and the idea of chickens being cooped up in a cage their entire lives just so that they can produce eggs more efficiently sickens me.
Mine are free from the coop. Just requires a small amount of upkeep.
I whole-heartedly agree with you.
Oh my gosh. Any idiots who think eating reproductive parts of sick, penned in, beak removed chickens is decent nourishment, go for it. Anyone who wishes to save a buck by eating from sick animals, have at it.
Even “free range” is bull. They still pen in the chickens so tightly they can’t get to the tiny open door that exists to get that label of free range. It’s a scam. Their feed makes the eggs contaminated as well. These are sick birds. Smart humans wouldn’t eat from them, even if it is cheaper at the supermarket.
Food literally becomes you. Skimp on other things. Never on your sources of protein, unless you love neurological diseases and cancer.
Healthy eggs are pastured (organic feed preferable). Yes, they cost more. Sick, poorly fed animals are cheaper to eat. But healthy animals roaming in fields, eating bugs and bits of grass and rocks, along with decent feed, make the healthiest food on the planet — their eggs!
“...food stamp users get less food for their EBT dollar.”
You mean just like the rest of us? Just damn!
I suspect California already set a precedent with it's car emission standards.
Chicken are food, don’t name your food, don’t cuddle your food, don’t play with your food. Eat your food, chicken is food.
I get my eggs from a local gal. I have my choice, Brown or green. Best eggs ever, and fresh. 3 bucks a dozen, and worth it!
So stop shipping eggs into California. Let those fools pay 15 dollars a dozen. They voted for it, let them enjoy the consequences.
Baby pigs are tasty roasted whole over an open fire.
Exactly. Don’t sell in California and undercut their ass by 20% in every other state.
I think if more people would raise their own chickens this would drive the cost down for everybody.
The whole problem of maximum birds in minimum space would be solved by the free market. And on a side note its a great chore for teaching kids to work and produce something(well the bird does the work) with seeing eggs produced then the child becomes more interested and then you can more easily teach them gardening and canning.
It worked with my daughter and now she can produce her own fruits, veggies, and eggs. That’s a skill that lasts a lifetime.
Now if California is saying other states must comply whether they sell in California or not.........now we have a problem.
Yes I agree they voted for this let them supply their own eggs.
I do see a new industry, egg brokers or clearing houses where all eggs go for packaging and sale.
You mean, like...
Green Eggs and Ham?
“Florida and pork production.”
Amusing story; I watched some farming program on bps early in the day. They showed a sow, and then the announcer said “Farmers can tell when a sow is ready to be bred, like this one. The ex came home and we watched the program again in the evening. When the sow come on, I blurted out, “That sow is ready to be bread.” Then the announcer came on and said the same thing! My ex was very impressed! Bwaaaaa! B****!
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