Better Days Ahead for Pregnant Pigs

U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on California’s Prop 12 spells trouble for Oklahoma pig farms using extreme confinement.

BY LOUISA McCUNE

May 12, 2023

‍

What protections do food animals deserve? When we learned on Wednesday morning that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld California’s Proposition 12, I knew that a vast universe of unspeakable cruelty hidden in barns across the American Midwest was a big step closer to history’s trash bin. The science and ethics are settled—the fifty-five-year failed experiment of gestation crates for pregnant pigs is harmful to animals, human health, and real farmers and ranchers. Now, the legal case is settled, too.

Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch said the plaintiffs—the National Pork Producers Council, et al—failed to convince the court to overturn the California voter-approved law banning the in-state sale of extreme-animal-confinement products. “While the Constitution addresses many weighty issues, the type of pork chops California merchants may sell is not on that list,” Gorsuch wrote.

In 2018, California banned the sale of pork produced from pregnant pigs living in crates so small the animals cannot stand up, lie down, turn around, or stretch their limbs (tightening a prior prohibition). Ten other states have banned the use of gestation crates: Arizona, Colorado, Florida (the first state to do so), Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Ohio, Oregon, and Rhode Island.

What does this mean for Oklahoma? Hopefully, better days ahead.

Our state is a leading producer of sow pigs and piglets, fifth and seventh in the nation, respectively. Lying in remote, crowded barns throughout northwest Oklahoma, sow pigs are repeatedly bred and perpetually confined to metal crates 6.6-feet long by 2 feet wide. Living atop their waste on slatted metal floors—for three to four years, until slaughter—these smart, social, and playful creatures at first demonstrate resistance (screaming and bar chewing). Despair eventually gives way to despondency: a three-year-old confined sow won’t even respond to a nudge or dousing of water near the end of her life.

Currently, of the 220 million farm animals raised and slaughtered annually in Oklahoma, 1.8 percent of them (about 4 million) spend their lives in extreme confinement. And 91 percent of Oklahomans—from Republican men to Democratic women, in all parts, at all income levels—find this practice appalling, believing these food animals deserve better.

Oklahoma’s largest pork producer, Seaboard Farms was a staunch ally of the NPPC in the California lawsuit, while Smithfield and Hormel adapted to meet policy mandates and consumer demands. Today, Seaboard remains committed to using gestation crates for pregnant sows. Oklahoma farm and animal advocates, including me, have welcomed discussions with pork industry leadership. Ending this cruelest of cruel practices, widely decried by veterinarians, ethicists, religious leaders, and farmers alike, is a top priority for Oklahoma animal advocates.

Oklahoma’s pork mega-producers currently may not sell to Carl’s Jr., Sonic Drive-In, Burger King, McDonald’s, Target, Safeway, Cracker Barrel, Denny’s, Subway, and dozens more American favorites. Kroger is nearly 100 percent crate-free and is funding the transition for its farmers. Down in Chickasha, the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma is already crate-free (and cage-free), thanks to its cafeteria procurement contracts with Sodexo, which leads the way on humane meat sourcing, along with Aramark.

Oklahoma state legislators are also taking notice. This session, in anticipation of the Supreme Court’s decision, two job-creation bills were aimed at incentivizing rural sow-pig farmers to voluntarily remove gestation crates. Introduced by Senator George Young and Representative Jason Lowe, the bills would establish funds to remove crates and retrofit existing facilities into open-pen housing. This legislation won’t remove bacon from the breakfast table but will position Oklahoma for economic growth. Importantly, humane food policies have not increased meat prices—influenzas, the erosion of free markets, COVID, and illegal price-fixing scandals are responsible for that.

The Supreme Court’s decision this week is the beginning of the end of the “cage age.” Screams of pain will be replaced with squeals of joy. Our farm animals deserve the least of this, and Oklahomans deserve a return to decency for farmers and the animals in their care.

____

Enid native Louisa McCune is a volunteer board member at Kirkpatrick Policy Group. To learn more about this issue, visit oklahomaporktransition.org.

‍