OPINION:
You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, as the Marxists werefond of saying to explain their brutal “persuasion,” but if you can’t afford breakfast you won’t have to worry about the litter of the eggshells.
This is the lesson Californians are learning with enforcement of a new law, approved six years ago in a state referendum and just now effective, decreeing larger living quarters for California hens. The law is driving up the price of ham and eggs (nobody seems worried about pigs, who after all contribute their lives to breakfast). Egg producers are required to provide an increase of 70 percent more space for a hen, and the price of eggs is expected to rise by as much as 40 percent. The law affects egg producers in other states, too, if they sell their eggs in California.
Californians, perhaps innocently because everyone wants to be kind to chickens, asked for it. Voters approved Proposition 2 in 2008, a ballot initiative put on the ballot by animal rights proponents to require more stretching and strutting room for the lady chickens. Prop 2 was adopted by a wide margin, 63 percent to 37 percent, after an emotional campaign stroked voters’ heartstrings over inhumane treatment of animals. The Legislature strengthened the law two years later by requiring compliance by out-of-state producers who sell eggs in the state.
The law took effect on New Year’s Day after a six-year delay to give egg producers time to retrofit their hen houses to enable a minimum of 116 square inches per bird. This is expensive. Jim Dean, president of Centrum Valley Farms, which operates egg farms in Iowa and Ohio, says that one of the company’s buildings built for 1.5 million birds is only half full now to meet the new requirements, and another hen house will have to be rebuilt. Egg farmers in cold climates must install heaters to replace the body heat of hens living in closer quarters. He says voters didn’t take that into account in California, where the sun shines most of the time.
“You’re talking about millions upon millions of dollars,” Mr. Dean says. “It’s not anything that’s cheap or that can be modified easily, not in the Midwest.”
California imports from other states about a third of the 10.1 billion eggs it consumes annually. Many Californians, particularly the millions of Hispanic residents, who rely on their tasty huevos rancheros — fried eggs over a corn tortilla under a chili and tomato sauce — as an economical source of protein, will be the hardest hit. The poor always pay the full price of do-good schemes.
The Egg Industry Center at the University of Iowa estimates that the increased cost of eggs for a California family of four will be $15.93 annually. Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States, enthusiastically supports the law, and says the cost to consumers will be “minimal,” and worth it for the welfare of the chickens. He is paid more than $350,000 annually, which will buy a lot of eggs, fried, boiled or baked. Eggs from cage-free or free-roaming chickens have long been a choice for consumers willing to pay a premium for them, typically a dollar or more extra per dozen. But for most folks those increased costs are more than chicken feed.
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