A key committee in the United States Senate has released a draft of the country's next farm bill — a sweeping piece of US legislation, renewed roughly every five years, that shapes federal policy on farm subsidies, agricultural credit, and rural development across the country. The draft, released by Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman, has reignited one of American agriculture's most contentious fights: California's Proposition 12.
Proposition 12 is a law passed by California voters in 2018 that sets minimum space requirements for livestock, including pigs. Crucially, the law also restricts the sale of pork within California to producers that meet these standards, regardless of where in the US the animals were raised. Because California is such a large market, the law has effectively pressured pork producers across the country — particularly in major pork-producing states like Iowa, North Carolina, and Minnesota — to adapt their practices to comply, even though they operate entirely outside California.
A coalition of 330 US agricultural organizations, led by the National Pork Producers Council, is pushing Congress to pass federal legislation that would prevent individual states from imposing production standards on goods made elsewhere in the country — arguing this protects interstate commerce from a patchwork of conflicting state rules.
The new farm bill draft does deliver wins elsewhere for the US farm sector, including funding for swine health programs, improvements to federal agricultural credit and loan programs, expanded investment in specialty crops, and new fertilizer market transparency rules. However, it does not address Proposition 12, and producer groups say they intend to keep pressing US lawmakers on the issue as the bill moves toward formal Senate consideration.