Session Examines Prop 12 at Midwest Pork Event
Published: Friday, December 13, 2024
Last week, the 2024 Midwest Pork Conference held one of its informative breakout sessions on the controversial Proposition 12 which establishes new standards for confinement of certain farm animals and bans the sale of non-compliantly produced products in the state of California. Although California is where the proposition passed, the law affects other states hoping to sell in California and establishes precedent for similar legislation to be passed in other states.
"Gestation crate bans, for example, in Massachusetts and California--not only do they have the ban on gestation crates for animals raised in that state but also for everyone selling into the state," said Jamee Eggers, COO of Cloverleaf Animal Welfare Systems.
Eggers moderated a panel consisting of Brian Martin of Martin Family Farms in Indiana, and Brigitte Mason, director of Sows in the Indiana region for Country View Family Farms. Eggers said that after two years of auditing farms for compliance with Proposition 12, there are some basics regarding that regulation that producers should note.
"The devil is truly in the details with the defini-tions that are written into the law," she said.
One of these definitions is an audit trail—one that shows records are in sufficient detail across the entire supply chain. In-person inspections happen at the producer and distributor levels, but every entity in between must stick to the audit trail, citing record-keeping systems that certify pigs were raised in compliance and all pork meat was distributed accordingly.
"Compliant farms get a certificate which acts sort of as a driver's license for the farm," Eggers said. "This is what gets pre-sented anywhere in the supply chain, and distributors are required to trace product back to a certified sow farm."
Another set of definitions applies to space measurements set up by the regulations. For pigs, that means 24 feet per sow, and each sow should be able to turn all the way around without touching the enclosure or another animal. Eggers said there is no rounding up in the measurements—23.7 feet is not compliant, for exam-ple. It must be 24 square feet. She noted a farm can choose to do both group housing which is compliant, and conven-tional gestational stalls on the same farm, but everything must be documented to show that the offspring and their products did not mingle with the non-compliantly raised animals.
Mason said success in adopting the regula-tions on her farms has been dependent on choosing a design best suited to an individual farm or facili-ty.
"With the housing system, you just need to know what the footprint of your barn is, what you are looking to do from a labor perspective and pick the design that's best for you," Mason said. "There's companies out there, especially if you're looking at electronic sow feeding that will help you design as far as what your footprint allows, what your inventory allows and what your labor constraint is."
Mason added in her experience overseeing multiple operations, there are some labor-intensive sys-tems that eventually require added labor to the farm, and others that are less labor-intensive where a manager may be able to keep the same amount of labor or maybe remove an individual. Another important definition, Eggers said, is knowing which pigs you are talking about.
"The law defines breeding pigs as females who are six months of age and older, or pregnant, and the 'or' is an important piece here," she said. "Gilts can be held at less than 24 square feet up until they are bred, and at that point they have to be housed at 24 square feet."
Proposition 12 regulations also define the production cycle, or life cycle, of a gilt as beginning at six months of age or older when they are moved into a pen and ending when litters are weaned. The wording is also tricky when it comes to times when sows are allowed to be in an enclosure.
"You can confine sows at less than 24 square feet for at most 6 hours in a 24-hour period, and 24 hours total in 30 days," Eggers said. "You cannot put them into farrowing for more than five days before their expected farrowing date, and there are veterinary exemptions for individual treatment."
When it came to the timing of when gilts could be in smaller confinement pens, Mason and Martin both said success came down to having leadership on the farm that understood the regulations and talent that could pinpoint the most effective way to use that time.
"We worked with the management on our farms to figure out what would be the best way to record this," Mason said, "For some that was electronically, and others had sheets to show our auditors."
Martin add-ed that recording groups or sets of animals rather than writing down every individual was helpful. Eggers pointed out that the auditing process for Proposition 12 is still evolving.
"I would say that as a certifying agent and an auditor, that the first audits I did in 2023 were way different than the ones that I did recertifying producers this year," she said. "The California Department of Food and Ag is engaged with how the audits are going and they host a call monthly for certifying agents where we identify how to address certain things, or they give us further definitions or examples of record-keeping that is acceptable."
Martin said in 2022 his farm participated in developing the auditing system and training auditors.
"Everyone being audited is either working to-ward compliance or they are compliant, but this isn't a crackdown or 'gotcha' on everyone breaking the rules, it's more of—do you understand compliance, are you getting there or already compliant."
One example of the process evolving, Martin said, is an experience he had on his first au-dit.
"The first audit to us, we got into a dialogue about a particular treated animal we had pulled out and placed her in confinement to treat her, and the auditor said that gilt should not be treated, so we said OK we'll be compliant, and we let her out," he said. "Then the auditor called someone to discuss this case and he flipped on that and said 'yeah, treatment is appropriate', so the moral meaning is a little bit liquid but there's some logic to act correctly given the opportunity."
Mason said it is important to have con-versations and sincere connections with an auditor.
"They're obviously not just going to hand you your audit, but you can have an open dialogue with them so you can know it's not a scary process," she said. "We've developed a good relationship with them so our farms aren't super nervous when they come, because we know what to expect from them and I would say spending the time to do all of that is im-portant."
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