Family Farms, Not Factory Farms — Kill the Corporate Handout in the Farm Bill

Dear Representative , I’m writing as your constituent to urge you to keep the so-called Save Our Bacon Act out of the final farm bill. The measure passed the House as H.R. 4673, folded in as Sec. 12006 of the House farm bill, H.R. 7567, on a near-party-line. This is federal overreach dressed up as farm relief. It bars states from setting any protections for farm animals — including at industrial feeding operations — that differ from other states’ rules, taking direct aim at California’s Proposition 12 and Massachusetts’ Question 3. A Harvard Law analysis found the bill’s reach is far broader than pork, with an appendix listing more than 600 state and local laws it could jeopardize food safety, disease and quarantine control, and product standards among them. These are not fringe rules. Prop 12 passed with 63% of the vote in 2018; Question 3 passed with 78% in 2016. Congress should not nullify the ballot box on behalf of one industry segment. Small farmers are not the beneficiaries here. A USDA analysis found roughly one in four hog farmers is already Prop 12 compliant many having invested their own capital to reach premium markets. This bill devalues those investments and rewards the largest confinement operations that chose not to adapt. That is government picking winners and losers. The opposition is bipartisan for exactly these reasons. Republicans Anna Paulina Luna, Andrew Garbarino, and Brian Fitzpatrick joined Democrat Jim Costa to strike the provision in the House, citing both animal welfare and states’ rights Senate Agriculture Chairman John Boozman has already declined to include it in the Senate draft. I ask you to hold that line. Oppose any effort to insert the Save Our Bacon Act — or its twin, S. 1326 — into the farm bill in conference. Cut this pork. Protect state authority, the farmers who played by the rules, and the food-safety standards Americans voted for. Sincerely, A Voting Constituent