Caged Resistance: California’s Proposition 2 and Animal Welfare

The well-reported economic story goes something like this. Leading up to the 2015 regulation deadline, California egg producers were forced to spend millions of dollars retrofitting their farms. Some built more space to maintain their flock size, while others  reduced their numbers of hens. Either way, the standards have imposed a hefty economic burden on producers, and that burden is being transferred to consumers in the form of higher prices. A dozen of jumbo eggs in California is now selling, on average, for $3.16, nearly two dollars more than one was at this time last year. In some regions of California, that price has reached $5. What’s more? California is the fifth largest egg-producing state in the United States, with 18.3 million active egg-laying hens. Hence, when Californian egg prices rise, the impact is felt throughout the West Coast. These price increases are not large enough to affect most middle-class families’ grocery shopping, but they pose a more serious barrier to low-income families who rely on eggs as a cheap and reliable protein source. These price increases won’t be limited to eggs at the supermarket — given the widespread culinary use of eggs, many meal prices, from those of restaurants to packaged foods, will see an increase.

On the legal side of the issue, although Proposition 2 has no jurisdiction outside of California, its effects have been felt nationwide due to a companion bill — A.B. 1437 — that was passed in 2010. A.B. 1437 was designed to ensure that Californian egg producers are not put at a competitive disadvantage by the stricter regulations. The bill shifts the legal burden of Proposition 2 from egg producers to vendors, requiring that all eggs sold in California comply with the new standards, regardless of where they are laid. In effect, A.B. 1437 and Proposition 2 force non-Californian egg producers to choose between costly compliance with out-of-state regulations and the loss of the large Californian market. Six states, all major beneficiaries of industrial animal agriculture, filed a lawsuit against California on the grounds that Proposition 2 violates the Commerce Clause by imposing state regulations on interstate trade. Federal courts have consistently rejected this challenge despite several appeals.

These two stories — economic and legal — are essential to understanding the scope and depth of the bill. Unfortunately, they have eclipsed the questions of animal rights that lie at the heart of Proposition 2. California tends to set the national agenda for social and environmental policy. In light of that, it is worth asking whether Proposition 2 and the strategy for animal protection that it represents is the right agenda to set. This consideration demands two basic questions. First, will the regulations actually improve the lives of hens in Californian egg-laying facilities? Second, will the legislation become a gateway or an impediment to further, more comprehensive animal rights improvements?

Regarding the first question, it is not as obvious as it might seem; giving hens more room may not increase their quality of life. Certainly, the increased space gives the hens more freedom and space for natural social behavior. It also seems to help reduce rates of painful osteoporosis and beetle infestations. But it comes with some major tradeoffs. Hens in larger or non-cage confinement systems have a significantly increased risk of bone fractures, claw complications and parasitic infections. In addition, farmers with more open cage systems often cut off the hens’ beaks with a searing knife in order to prevent cannibalism. Not only is this an extremely painful procedure, but it also reduces the ability of the hens to adequately groom and feed. Further, hens often pile atop one another in these more open systems, resulting in the death of hens at the bottom due to asphyxiation. This is not to say that increasing hen space and freedom is bad, but that truly productive reforms within the larger factory farm setting are extremely complex. It is worth asking whether an animal rights movement structured around incremental factory farm reform will ever produce meaningful quality-of-life improvements for animals. With Proposition 2, it seems the main byproduct is unintended consequences.

But even if more space is net beneficial to the hens’ quality of life, it is not clear that industrial agriculture regulations like Proposition 2 can actually guarantee that space. As previously noted, the animal agriculture industry is massive, and it has a great deal of political power. It is nearly impossible to pass national or state level factory farm regulations without ballot initiatives because the meat industry has made powerful friends in the U.S. Department of Agriculture and plenty of money to spend on lobbying. Even when such regulations are passed, it is increasingly challenging to enforce them. For example, so called “Ag-Gag” bills that criminalize videotaping and other forms of whistleblowing in factory farms have been passed in several states, including Iowa, the nation’s largest egg producer, and have been on the ballot in many more. Covert videotaping on the part of workers has been one of the only ways to combat animal rights atrocities in factory farms, which otherwise never let members of the public in to view the conditions. The animal rights group Direct Action Everywhere recently released an investigative report into a “certified humane” egg farm — one of the most strictly regulated food labels, which far exceeds the standards set by Proposition 2. Instead of happy hens grazing on green pastures, they found confinement, disease and mutilation. Because of their political power and recent Ag-Gag laws, industrial agriculture companies are able to pay lip service to animal rights regulations while sidestepping or outright ignoring them without being held accountable.

In light of these major deficiencies in the efficacy of industrial agriculture reform, statements by proponents of laws such as Proposition 2 are often wildly hyperbolic. In his victory statement after the passage of Proposition 2, Wayne Pacell, president of the Humane Society, congratulated California voters for “[bringing] forth a new, more compassionate age” in animal rights. He went on to claim, “Prop 2 will phase out those inexcusable confinement systems and usher in a new era. No state in the U.S. and no Agribusiness titan anywhere in the nation can overlook this mandate: people do not want their farm animals treated with wanton cruelty.” Overstated claims about the efficacy and scope of small regulatory changes may be good publicity for the Humane Society, but they reduce tension about animal exploitation and slaughter in the general public. Consumers are made to feel like they have solved the abuses of industrial animal agriculture with a single vote. In turn, this reduces the incentive for consumers to decrease their consumption of animal products, takes the wind out of the sails of grassroots animal rights movements, and gives people a clear conscience when eating meat and other animal products, which are still produced in horrific conditions. As such, the answer to the second question — will Proposition 2 help or hinder future animal rights improvements — is clear: it serves as a barrier to more extensive and important legislation in the future.

All of this is not to say that regulation and reform of animal agriculture is always bad. Although there’s reason to be skeptical of Proposition 2, it is possible that similar laws could create meaningful change in the lives of animals. Nonetheless, animal welfare advocates need to be extremely careful — more so than they have in the past — about what policies they endorse and how they go about endorsing them, lest they grease the wheels of animal exploitation, suffering and slaughter by sewing ill-founded complacency in the American public. The real power of Proposition 2 does not lie in expanding cages, but expanding minds: discussions of economics and law might be comfortable, but letting them take the place of public education, discussion and debate about animal rights denies Proposition 2 of the only chance it has at combating the horrors of the factory farm.