Reposted from: https://meatingplace.com/im-a-hog-farmer-heres-why-i-support-prop-12/
February 5, 2026
I’ve been reading claims lately that farmers who support California’s Proposition 12 are being used — that we’re fronts, props, or pretenders for someone else’s agenda.
As a fourth-generation hog farmer from Missouri, I’ll say this clearly: No one recruited me into this fight. I’m here because Prop 12 affects whether farmers like me can stay in business.
My family has raised livestock and grain on the same land for more than a century. Like many independent farmers, we’ve lived through decades of consolidation that hollowed out our industry. Many of my neighbors disappeared because the market stopped working for them.
That’s the bigger picture missing from most attacks on Prop 12.
California’s Proposition 12 isn’t a threat to farmers like me. It’s one of the few market opportunities that’s helped us survive.
Prop 12 doesn’t ban pork production or tell farmers how to operate in their home states. It sets minimum space standards for pork sold into California’s market — standards voters chose to support with their dollars. Farmers who want access to that market meet the standard. Farmers who don’t aren’t forced to participate. This isn’t radical; it’s how markets work.
What’s really at stake is control. For decades, the pork industry has been shaped by a handful of powerful processors that dictate contract terms, production models, and market access. When those companies talk about “uniform standards,” they aren’t defending farmers. They’re defending a system built around their own business model — one that leaves independent producers with fewer choices and thinner margins.
Prop 12 disrupts that control by creating a premium market for farmers who raise hogs in higher-welfare systems. About 27% of U.S. hog producers are already compliant. These aren’t hypothetical farms. They’re real family operations that invested time and money to meet market demand — and now stand to lose that investment if Congress wipes the market away.
Critics claim Prop 12 hurts farmers and drives up prices. But the facts don’t back that up. Since enforcement began in January 2024, retail pork chop prices in California rose about 6.6% — a normal adjustment as supply met demand. The much-cited 41% price spike happened years earlier, during pandemic-era disruptions, long before Prop 12 took effect.
Others argue Prop 12 violates interstate commerce. The Supreme Court already rejected that claim, affirming a basic principle farmers understand well: States have the right to decide what products can be sold within their borders.
Now Congress is being asked to override that decision — not to protect farmers, but to protect corporate convenience. Bills like the Food Security and Farm Protection Act and the Save Our Bacon Act would strip states of their authority and erase a market that thousands of farmers depend on.
Between 1980 and 2022, the number of U.S. hog farms fell by more than 70%, even as production increased. That collapse wasn’t caused by animal welfare laws. It was caused by consolidation, weak antitrust enforcement, and a system that rewards size over stewardship.
I respect every farmer who works hard and cares for their animals. But front groups that speak for multinational processors don’t speak for me — or for the farmers who see Prop 12 as a lifeline.
We don’t need Congress to “fix” Proposition 12. We need Congress to stop interfering in markets in ways that make it impossible for independent farmers to survive.
Joe Maxwell is a fourth-generation Missouri hog farmer and co-founder of Farm Action, a farmer-led, nonpartisan watchdog organization.