OPINION:
Last week, the National Pork Producers Council came to Washington to once again lobby Congress to overturn a voter-approved ballot initiative. When California passed Proposition 12 in 2018 to stop farmed animals from being overcrowded in cages, NPPC set out to upend it. However, the group isn’t just serving its own special interest; it’s also working against ours.
Here’s what lawmakers should take a hard look at: The NPPC’s biggest member is Smithfield Foods, the largest pork producer in the U.S., owned by WH Group (formerly Shuanghui), a Chinese corporation based in Hong Kong whose growth model depends on exporting U.S. pork to China. So NPPC is lobbying for a foreign-owned company’s profits while pretending to be “the voice of farmers.” When it points to “farmers” who want Prop 12 overturned, you can bet it’s Smithfield’s contract growers who are trapped in debt, with no control over how pigs are raised, and entirely at the mercy of the company that owns their contracts.
Here’s the craziest part: This fight isn’t really about Prop 12. The ballot measure was introduced in 2018, but the first version of the language to “fix” it showed up back in 2012 as the Protect Interstate Commerce Act, nicknamed the King Amendment. Also in 2012, Shuanghui began talks to purchase Smithfield. The goal has always been to expand operations easily without dealing with U.S. state regulations.
The new versions of the bill to overturn Prop 12, the Save Our Bacon Act, and its Senate version, the Food Security and Farm Protection Act, aren’t about protecting American farmers or consumers at all. If lawmakers truly want to stand with American farmers, they should reject bills like these that put foreign corporations ahead of U.S. agriculture.
BECCA ROGERS
Manager of campaigns, New Roots Institute
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