Tide Turning for Cage-Free Pork Production

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New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed legislation on July 26 banning extreme confinement of breeding pigs and calves raised for veal. Under the new regulations – which take effect January 2024 – producers will be prohibited from confining these food animals in ways that impact their ability to standup, turn around, and lie on their sides in metal cages that typically measures even feet long by two feet wide, barely larger than the animals’ own bodies.

“Ensuring that we are following humane farming practices and that farm animals are treated with care, rather than kept in enclosures so small they are immobilized, is a reflection of our values,” Murphy said in a press release.

Only two lawmakers in both houses of the New Jersey legislature voted against the new law, and the state’s assistant agriculture secretary endorsed the plan. A similar bill was vetoed by then-Governor Chris Christie eight years ago.

New Jersey is now the eleventh state to enact laws outlawing gestation crates for sow pigs, and the first to do so since the United States SupremeCourt in May upheld California’s Proposition 12, banning the sale of pork produced using extreme confinement methods.

Oklahoma should be next.

Nationally, roughly thirty-five percent of pork producers have converted to group housing systems, allowing pregnant sows more freedom of movement and socialization, according to Pig Progress, an industry trade publication. Most of the major food retailers in the U.S. have already pledged to transition away from sourcing pork from factory farms that use gestation crates. In Oklahoma, ninety-one percent of those polled – from Republican mento Democratic women, in all parts, at all income levels – said policies like those passed in New Jersey should be adopted here.

What are we waiting for?

There are currently two job-creating bills in the Oklahoma Legislature– SB 66 and HB 2438 – that would incentivize state farmers to retrofit their operations from gestation crates to group housing at a minimum of twenty-foursquare feet per sow, introduced last session in the House and SenateAgriculture committees by Representative Jason Lowe and Senator George Young ,respectively. The ranchers I have spoken said they are glad they made the conversion away from gestation crates.

The state’s pork industry says they promote animal well-being, but animal experts have shown that extreme confinement spreads disease and amounts to a public health risk.

This fight is simultaneously happening in Congress. The ExposingAgriculture Trade Suppression (EATS) Act – endorsed by eleven governors, includingGovernor Kevin Stitt – would repeal laws such as California’s Prop 12. Meanwhile, the Pigs In Gestation Stalls (PIGS) Act of 2023 would bar extreme confinement nationwide and provide financial assistance to farmers. The EATS Act favors massive, foreign-owned farms while the PIGS Act helps independent farmers ride the wave of change without economically crippling their businesses.

The tide is turning. Business – even the pork industry – must adapt to market forces to stay competitive.

What is stopping them?

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