The real chicken run
It's easy for California voters to love Proposition 2, the initiative to let laying hens out of their battery cages. And I don't mean that as a compliment.
It's easy because Prop. 2 doesn't cost the consumer a dime. Nobody has to buy cage-free eggs. All the initiative does is force California egg farmers to raise them that way. (Remember that despite the wording, this initiative isn't about veal calves or pregnant pigs, because California has hardly any of those. This is all about chickens.) No wonder Prop. 2 is acing the political polls.
Surprise! Californians buy a lot of their eggs from out-of-state egg farms. And since food prices have not been kind to anyone's wallets lately, and a lot more people don't have spare cash these days, consumers can be expected to go for the cheaper eggs. Not just in California, but nationwide, putting California's egg farms at a perpetual disadvantage. So nothing changes about the way eggs are produced, but a whole lot of eggs --and California egg farmers--can't find a big enough market.
If Californians were serious about humane treatment of chickens, they would put their money where their frittata-munching mouths are. What if this initiative required that eggs sold in California cannot come from battery-cage hens. Voters would, in effect, be taxing themselves and each other, paying for the kind treatment they support. This wouldn't just put the state's egg farms on an even laying field (sorry, couldn't resist), it would have an impact across the nation. California is a huge market for everything, from cars to textbooks. What California demands is what the nation tends to produce.
So why isn't this initiative written that way? There's the conspiracy theory that the Humane Society 
types behind the initiative actually want egg farms to go out of business, the better to promote veganism. That sounds a little grassy-knollish to me. But it is worth remembering that this campaign originates with a national organization, not a state one, and the survival of a California industry is not toward the top of the Humane Society's priority list. Probably proponents figured this would be more palatable to the voters, but it's a chicken way to reform agriculture.
Photos by Manjunath Kiran, European Pressphoto Agency, and Mark Boster, Los Angeles Times
This was attempted thru legislation put was always held up by Big Agriculture. It had to go thru a signature gathering process to make the ballot.
VOTE YES ON PROP 2!
Posted by: lsinla | October 07, 2008 at 11:43 PM
Proposition 2 should be a YES vote.
Factory Farms are destroying our environments and making people sick. Animals crammed so tightly in cages are given high doses of antibiotics which has been shown to cause a resistance in humans who then eat them.
It's not just a 'feel good' vote. YES ON PROP 2 is definitely a compassionate issue as it would give animals enough space to stand up, lie down, turn around and extend their limbs/wings. But it's not a Republican issue, a Democrat issue....it's a question of basic human decency.
The egg industry's own economist said it would cost less than a penny per egg to implement these changes and they are given until 2016, 6+ years, to make them. Plenty of time.
We are letting these corporations put family farmer's out of work and they are destroying our environment...not to mention the mistreatment of animals.
We Californians are better than this! VOTE YES ON PROP 2!
Posted by: yesonprop2 | October 07, 2008 at 11:58 PM
Did either of you actually read the thoughtful argument above? This kind of blind spouting of obvious organizational talking points in the face of well-reasoned criticism is exactly what undercuts the animal rights movement.
Get a clue, guys.
Posted by: Iriska | October 08, 2008 at 07:55 AM
Prop 2 is, quite simply, the right thing to do. It is the LEAST that the animals we use for food deserve.
The industrialized egg industry has become consistently worse in terms of animal welfare. Voluntary standards and attempts to pass legislation have not worked. That's why voters must stand up to fight animal abuse directly.
There is clear evidence that Prop 2's standards will benefit animal welfare, food safety, and the environment, as well as evidence that coverting to the new standards need not be costly. (An CA egg industry economist estimated it would cost about 1 penny per egg to go cage free.) Since many of the producers opposing Prop 2 already have cage free operations, and since we already import nearly half of our eggs, the claims of catastrophe ring false.
Prop 2 is endorsed by veterinarians, the Center for Food Safety, the Pew Commission on Industrial Agriculture, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the Sierra Club, family farmers, religious leaders, and more.
Learn the truth--and the myths--at YesonProp2.org.
Posted by: Kadia | October 08, 2008 at 09:50 AM
The argument that production will just shift to other states is misguided.
During a similar ballot initiative in Arizona in 2006, the pork industry attempted to scare voters with the same assertion. In reality though, the opposite happened. Not only did the major gestation crate user remain in the state, but the landslide vote (62-38) was a catalyst for national reform in the veal and pork industries. Within just three months of the vote, the top two veal producers announced they'd phase out their use of veal crates and the largest pig producers in the US and Canada announced they'd be phasing out gestation crates.
Arizona vote set a path not only for improved animal welfare in the state, but it encouraged reform in the rest of the nation, as well. A similar experience will likely take place in the egg industry when Californians pass Prop 2 – and industry leaders seem to agree. Further, an increasing number of major retailers are demanding that their suppliers move away from extreme confinement practices. Prop 2 will accelerate this trend, meaning that there will be even less incentive for production to relocate.
Prop 2 will set the bar higher for animal welfare practices both in CA and across the nation.
Posted by: Paul | October 08, 2008 at 11:02 AM
Granted that humane treatment of farm animals is the goal, my question is why aren't we going about this in a way that is both fairer and more effective?
If the law required that all eggs sold in the state had to be be from cage-free hens (not quite the accurate phrase, but it will do), the people who are favor of humane treatment would be agreeing to pay for those eggs, creating a market for them. If the added cost of the eggs is indeed so tiny, no one should mind this.
But that's not what it does. As long as California consumers can buy whatever eggs they want, no additional market is created for the cage-free eggs. It's not like there's a shortage of the eggs now, so somewhere a bigger market has to be created for it.
The shame is that California is uniquely situated to create that market, because the state is so large its consumer demands help shape the producing market nationwide, and because so many of our eggs are bought from out of state. If we're all so concerned about humane treatment of laying hens, why are we putting all the responsibility on the farmers who produce only a portion of the eggs we consume, and nothing on ourselves?
By the way, the sow situation is not quite the same. Those laws affect only gestating sows, it didn't force the remaking of the entire pig-farm process. The switch to cage-free eggs involves the way the hens are raised and treated during their lifetimes, how eggs are collected and so forth.
Posted by: Karin Klein | October 08, 2008 at 01:27 PM
Oh man the egg industry will move out of the state and California's economy would be doomed, no more lucrative high paying jobs for us Calis. This is sick, I'm as conservative as they come but this takes the cake, we should torture and be excessively cruel to living creatures that feel pain and bleed in agony just like us humans and our pets because we might pay a .001 cent more for eggs, yea that will be the economic burden that will crush California, not the housing market or gas prices. The spreading disease part is even funnier, if we keep animals caged in extremely dirty cages we will be alot healthier, cause as if the farmers will send thier hens into the wild to mingle with diseased raccoons. Ever heard of organic farming? you know those farms that breed alot healthier and better quality animals because they are bred in alot better conditions compared to mass market farming.
Posted by: DT | October 09, 2008 at 03:12 AM
This can be looked at in so many different ways. Look at it from an economic standpoint:
Much of it has already been mentioned, but here is a detailed analysis.
California egg farmers will have much higher production costs than any other state or Mexico. Nearly all of the eggs consumed in CA will shift from CA produced to foreign produced. This leaves the CA egg producers in a tough position. Their production costs on any type of caged eggs will be higher than anywhere else in the nation, thus will not be able to be sold at a competitive price. Since eggs are already sold at an incredibly low profit margin (a characteristic of a commodity), it is extremely improbable that CA egg producers will be able to make any operating profit on selling eggs, thus will discontinue their operations. Eggs (disregarding the different A, AA ratings) are a pure commodity, so consumers will buy the cheapest available, which won't be from CA.
Prop 2 will not force or encourage anybody to buy organic free-range eggs. Free-range eggs may become a tiny bit cheaper if all CA egg farmers are forced to go free-range (due to increased supply, consistent demand), but in large the only shift will be that out of state egg producers WILL produce MORE CAGED EGGS to make up for the constant demand and decreased previously-Californian egg supply.
The only reasonable option for CA farmers will be to go completely free-range/organic and compete in that completely separate, value-added segment of the national egg market. Even in this case, the extraordinary flood of increased supply of organic eggs will run prices so low (due to the consistent demand, flooded supply) that they will make a very very low, if not negative, profit. (Remember the added freight costs because the demand for free-range eggs is spread throughout the country) - More freight also means much more pollution.
So... economic effects on Californians:
1. Less state tax revenue from less egg sales
2. Same eggs, same prices, but from outside of CA
3. Thousands to tens of thousands of lost jobs.
4. Every egg farmer in CA will either completely go out of business or start producing free-range eggs. These free-range farmers will be exponentially less profitable and produce far fewer eggs than before.
5. If this passes, I can almost guarantee that the government will have to spend millions of your tax money to subsidize egg farmers.
6. There will be a dramatic increase in the risk of massive spreading of Evian diseases such as bird flu & Newcastle's disease. Potentially this could wipe out the whole state's egg production. These spread so quickly that the hens in a whole region will all have to be killed and quarantined to prevent the spread. Does that sound humane?
Posted by: JHarris | October 13, 2008 at 06:44 PM