Nearly eight years after Congress reauthorized the farm bill, lawmakers are still locked in disputes over how agriculture should be regulated. This week, the Senate agricultural committee released a farm bill draft that leaves out the Save Our Bacon Act, a pro
For nearly eight years, Congress has treated the farm bill like something always just out of reach. The massive legislative package that funds programs run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture is supposed to be renewed about every five years. Instead. persistent disagreements between lawmakers have kept it from passing again. leaving the federal government to rely on stop-gap measures and one-year extensions of a small handful of programs.
If farmers and advocates were hoping for a breakthrough this year. the latest draft out of the Senate is likely to disappoint them—and to complicate a fight that’s become bigger than farm policy alone. This week. the Senate agricultural committee released a draft farm bill that excluded a law known as the Save Our Bacon Act.
The measure had been included in the House draft farm bill earlier this year. with vocal support from Representative G.T. Thompson, who chairs the House agricultural committee. The Save Our Bacon. or SOB. is designed to override state and local laws like California’s Prop 12. which bans the sale of pork. chicken. and veal products that come from farms using extreme forms of animal confinement. including gestation crates for hogs.
Those critics say factory farming operations, where animals have the least amount of space to move around, produce large amounts of manure that is consolidated and stored in lagoons—conditions that can pollute local air and waterways.
Advocacy groups argue that laws like Prop 12 are both common sense and popular with voters who want transparency about where their food comes from. The American Meat Producers Association, or AMPA, an industry group that opposes SOB, says there are currently 14 states with similar laws on the books.
Molly Armus, who works on animal agricultural policy at Friends of the Earth, an environmental nonprofit, said she was frustrated by the idea that the farm bill could be used to reverse choices voters already made.
“It’s just disappointing that we’re even talking about this because the farm bill should be about supporting sustainable farming and healthy food and food security. It should not be a way for large industry groups to overturn the will of voters,” Armus said.
Armus also pointed to the environmental and climate logic behind the push to move away from extreme confinement. She noted that transitioning away from extreme confinement of livestock can have positive environmental and climate impacts if producers shift toward a pasture-raised system. Prop 12, she emphasized, only establishes minimum space requirements for animals.
A recent analysis from the USDA found that 27 percent of hog farmers—1 in 4—are already Prop 12 compliant, suggesting the transition away from extreme confinement is already underway.
Industry leaders see the fight differently. AMPA President Holly Bice said most hog farmers do not support the Save Our Bacon Act. She said Prop 12 has “been an important opportunity for them. ” because crate-free operations allow producers to sell products at a premium. Bice also tied that advantage to a broader economic pressure on small and midsize producers: she said it has helped hog farmers keep their heads above water as consolidation has increasingly driven farmers out.
But even within the industry, the issue is not settled. Brent Hershey, a hog farmer in Pennsylvania and a member of AMPA, described extreme confinement as sparking what he called a “civil war” among pork producers.
“The industry is completely divided on this,” Hershey said.
He said he personally was reluctant to change how his operation worked. Over time, though, after years of receiving negative feedback, he began to see things differently. Hershey said his farm has been crate-free for three years.
For him, passing SOB would be more than a policy tweak. He said it would be “devastating” for producers who invested time and money into improving their operations.
Experts also argue the stakes go beyond any single state law. If a farm bill makes it easier for industrial animal agriculture operations to skirt state rules, they warn it sets a precedent that could weaken broader environmental and public health goals.
J.W. Glass, a senior policy specialist at the Center for Biological Diversity, said the question is what happens to other state-level efforts to address pollution and health risks if states can’t rein in the most harmful aspects of industrial agriculture.
“When you’re doing something that, in a more macro sense, erodes states’ abilities to rollback some of the more harmful aspects of massive commercial agricultural operations, how does that impact any law that could impact agriculture?” Glass said.
He gave a concrete example of the kind of state action that could be undermined: “How does it impact state laws to restrict the use of pesticides?”
In the Senate, at least for now, it appears unlikely that SOB is poised to make it into the final version of the farm bill. Sara Amundson, president of the Humane World Action Fund (formerly the Humane Society), said it was a deliberate omission.
“[Boozman] did not put this in his bill. He knew it,” Amundson said.
She added, “And that’s why it’s critical to keep up the noise on it.”
Even with the Senate draft leaning away from SOB, it’s still unclear what happens next. The House could fold and exclude SOB from its version of the farm bill. Or if the two chambers cannot reconcile their differences on extreme confinement. the gridlock could stretch into next year—keeping the country in the same cycle of short-term extensions and stop-gap measures while the fight over animal agriculture moves from statehouses to Capitol Hill.
farm bill Save Our Bacon Act animal agriculture Prop 12 Senate agricultural committee Congress gridlock extreme confinement hog farmers USDA analysis environmental policy