On November 4th, California voters will have something extra to vote on that they actually CAN influence since it's a foregone conclusion that the state will overwhelmingly vote for the Democratic ticket as is customary. That something extra is known as California Proposition 2 (2008). It is meant to prohibit the confinement of certain farm animals in a manner that does not allow them to turn around freely, lie down, stand up, and fully extend their limbs. It would apply to veal calves, egg laying hens and pregnant pigs.

Last week, my wife DVRd an Oprah episode on Prop 2 and asked me to watch it with her. I figured if I can make her sit through my movies, I could endure an hour of Oprah to watch a topic my wife was concerned about. In all, Oprah did a decent job in portraying both sides of the issue, pitting a Humane Society leader and "free range" farmers vs. factory farming industry leaders and small farmers that claim the regulation would put them out of business. She also showed some hidden camera video and known footage of the conditions endured by the animals we eat. Some of the footage showed some truly horrid conditions for animals. For instance, some of them will NEVER move in their lifetime in a meaningful manner. Pregnant pigs could go YEARS in the same cage without even having room to turn around. I'm not a PETA terrorist, and I've been around long enough to know that our food lives a sad life upstream, but this was the first time I actually watched the footage and saw what it's really like.

The Controversy

The Proposition is quite controversial as would be expected. On one hand, when one investigates the conditions the animals that we eat endure, it's quite depressing. Most people, including myself until recently, simply choose to look the other way and assume that the cruel treatment of animals destined for human consumption is simply a necessary evil. On the other hand, the "factory farming" method that has evolved over hundreds of years has resulted in razor thin margins and low cost food for US consumers that wouldn't exist otherwise.

Historical Food Expenditures

As evidenced by this table, the US percentage of income spent on food has dropped dramatically over the past few decades, from over 20% of dispensable income in the 1930's to the teens in the 1960's to 5.7% in 2007. This tremendous reduction in food expenditures, in concert with lax credit standards and a US consumer with esteem issues has allowed average Americans to buy 4,000 square foot houses, Cadillac Escalades and clothes they don't wear.

Financial Considerations

Obviously, if you expand the area required to house the same number of animals on a given farm, the costs will increase in order to meet the proposed regulatory guidelines. This should result in a new increase in costs to consumers. There were some poorly articulated arguments stating that if you increased the requirements on all farmers, that somehow, the cost of food would actually come down, but that flies in the face of basic economics. Perhaps the cost would be lower than the initial increased cost of compliance when the requirements take effect, but to somehow think that the cost of food can go any lower than it is today with conventional factory farming methods while increasing costs to farmers, it's not going to happen.

However, there were some interesting points raised in the episode. On one hand, the notion that only California farmers would be held to these standards simply led to the notion of fluid economics that you see in other industries. Distributors would simply stop buying food adhering to these guidelines from California farmers and instead, import more from neighboring states and Mexico. This practice is already in place now, so what's to stop an increase in this trend? If this were to occur in vacuum, it could in fact put many farmers out of business, right? Their costs would go up while their sales decreased. Simple economics.

Where do we land on this?

For many Americans, the spectre of increasing food prices during a time when we're facing a global economic crisis, rising unemployment, inflation that we haven't seen for decades and a the decline of the American farm, this may be the final straw for many families that just deters further meat and egg purchases. For many Americans, the financial burden of paying a bit more for free range food is minimal. We're in the middle. Until recently, we'd been relatively complacent with respect to investigating the conditions upstream. While we could always afford to pay a bit more for meat from animals that are handled in a more humane manner while they're alive, we'd have to make choices. We already seem to spend much more than our friends and family for food given some organic choices, the cost of fresh fruits and vegetables, etc. We may have to make some choices, but if the increase in costs are reasonable, I'm OK with paying a bit more for food that is not only more humane, but is potentially more healthy. There is some evidence that animals on the free range-type farms (not just those adhering to Prop-2, but many farms already follow more humane practices and simply charge a premium) are given less in the way of antibiotics, release fewer stress hormones into their tissues during their lifetime, etc.

Next Steps

My wife has begun investigating local farms and their animal handling practices and whether you can buy directly from the farms. Once it reaches the supermarket, most of the food available there is direct from factory-farmed sources. Some families go so far as to purchase in bulk and freeze the beef for later use to bring the cost in line with standard costs.

Where Do You Stand on This? Is It Worth It?

Sources:

USDA

The Oprah Winfrey Show

Wikipedia

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