House Agriculture Chairman Glenn Thompson (R-Pennsylvania) could make it harder to pass a new farm bill.
Thompson is advocating for California’s Proposition 12 to include what he calls an “amendment.” He argues that Proposition 12’s requirements are disrupting the hog market.
Two agricultural nonprofits are challenging Pennsylvania Republicans over a bill enacted this year in California.
Thompson recently said that Proposition 12 has increased the price of meat for consumers and flooded the pork market, and “we need to fix that.”
Proposition 12, also known as the Livestock Cruelty Prevention Act and the Livestock Confinement Initiative, is said by some to be an unprecedented ban on the sale of food from livestock that is not raised according to specific standards.
It was approved in a referendum in 2018, but some provisions did not take effect until January 1st due to a court challenge. The California Department of Food and Agriculture states that the law prohibits farm owners or operators from knowingly cruelly confining eligible animals, and prohibits farm owners or operators from intentionally confining animals such as eggs, pork, or veal in California. He said it is prohibited to sell within the state. brutally imprisoned.
Thompson told the radio news service that he plans to include language in the new farm bill that addresses interstate commerce. Proposition 12 applies only to products sold in California.
“This allows us to stay grounded in garlic culture science in terms of our production methodologies and, frankly, to ensure that we continue to protect the rights of the state in terms of practices within the state,” Thompson said. he said. One state cannot harm an entire industry across the country. ”
Marty Irby is chairman of Competitive Markets Action, based in Washington, DC. The organization’s mission is to shape policies that “promote more regenerative and sustainable agriculture and competitive markets in the United States and protect against attacks on states’ rights by the federal government.”
Irby continues to criticize Thompson.
“If Speaker Thompson includes language in the next House Farm Bill that would override Prop. 12, we will unite 2,000 diverse opponents of the EATS Act and support more than 10 million individual producers, I am committed to working with the grassroots groups of consumers, advocates and business owners who need to make sure his farm bill does not pass in the House,” Irby said.
The Agricultural Trade Suppression Ending Act (EATS) was introduced in the House by Representative Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa) and in the Senate by Senator Roger Marshall (R-Kan.). Its purpose is to “prevent states and local governments from interfering with the production and distribution of agricultural products in interstate commerce.”
Mr. Marshall has 14 co-sponsors and Mr. Hinson has 35 co-sponsors, both Republicans from Midwestern and Southern states. Each bill has been in committee since June last year. Irby said 226 members of Congress from both parties have expressed opposition to repealing Proposition 12. Last August, 171 members of the House of Representatives said they sent a letter to Thompson and House Agriculture Committee Chairman David Scott (R-Ga.). Meanwhile, 31 senators sent a similar letter to Senate Agriculture Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D-Missouri) and Ranking Member John Boozman (R-Ark.).
It also reported comments from Minnesota Farm Bureau Secretary Dan Glessing, who said interstate commerce is a concern for one of the nation’s top pork-producing states. He is optimistic that Congress can pass a new farm bill with that language this year.
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