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Local farmers face difficulty with California law

FAIRMONT — Pigs are big business for Martin County. With over 150 pig farms, the county produces 40 million pounds of bacon per year, creates several jobs, and generates a fair sum of money.

With that said, hog farmers are looking at some troubling times thanks to regulation out of California with a law known as Proposition 12. Farmer Wanda Patsche explains just how a law in California is set to have a negative impact, not only on Martin County but the entire nation.

“It is a California proposition and it’s all about how animals are housed,” said Patsche. “What they did is they put this on their ballot for their citizens to vote on. It came back that the citizens of California said that any meat that’s going to be sold in the State of California needs to meet certain requirements about how animals are raised.

“The one that affects us here in Martin County, and on my farm particularly, is about the park. It’s not the market hogs like we sell to Hormel, it’s the sows, the mothers of the market hogs.

“What they’re saying is that they want larger areas for them to be housed in. Right now with the pigs that we have on our farm, their mothers are housed in individual stalls which the industry has been using for a very long time. I often say that there’s no perfect sow housing because there are always pros and cons.

“We used to have our hogs outdoors, but many people who are not familiar with farming and farming practices are envisioning this nice, sunny, 70-degree afternoon where the animals should be outside. First of all, how many days do we actually have like that? Number two, especially with sows and pigs, is that they’re aggressive with each other, especially sows.

“It’s part of their social hierarchy. If you put a group of sows together, they have to decide who’s on top. The way they do that is to fight each other, and we’ve literally had pigs die because another pig attacked it.”

Patsche notes that she is speaking from experience, sharing that when she started farming pigs were indeed outdoors.

“As the hog industry changed over the years, then we went into gestation barns. Then we could take those pigs that were outside and bring them indoors.

“Again, they’re in individual stalls so they’re not going to get bullied or killed by another sow. You can give them individual care, you can make sure they have the feed and water that they need, and any type of medical care that they would need.

“The negative part is that they’re in a stall, and that’s the part that California says they don’t want. So they said in order to sell pork in the State of California, animals have to come from farms that don’t use stalls. So they would not be able to buy any pork that comes from my farm, even though it doesn’t have anything to do with the market hogs, just their mothers.”

Patsche shares that the decision is frustrating, seeing the citizens of California have the ability to vote on the issue with a majority of them not understanding farming.

“Do you think that somebody in Los Angeles understands farming practices? They don’t know, and now it affects all 49 other states. For us to make the changes that they’re requiring would involve millions of dollars.

“We would have to redesign the complete barn system, with some remodeling and a lot of new barns would have to be built. It’s put us in a bad situation.

“We are part-owners of Center Creek Pork, which is a sow-unit east of Northrop. They use gestation stalls, so do you go in and remodel and reduce your number of animals? You’re not going to get any premium for that, they’re just going to expect you to do that.”

Patsche notes that Proposition 12 will serve to limit how many hogs can be housed. The problem lies in the fact that hogs are bred long before they are sent to market.

“It’s not like a spigot, you can’t just turn it off. So that’s a national issue that affects us directly here in Martin County.”

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