MARSHALLTOWN — A bill authored by U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson is one of the key sticking points in Congress’ ongoing negotiations over a new Farm Bill.
Hinson, the Republican nominee for Iowa’s open U.S. Senate seat, stood with about 40 farmers, agriculture workers and their families on a farm outside Marshalltown for a news conference on July 10 urging Congress to pass the measure, known as the “Save Our Bacon Act.”
“This is a fight for the livelihoods of our family farmers who are putting everything on the line — the blood, the sweat, the tears — into feeding the world,” Hinson said. “It’s a fight for rural Iowa, and it’s a fight that I am committed to taking on every single day.”
Hinson’s Save Our Bacon Act would nullify laws such as California’s Proposition 12, which place restrictions on the sale of pork from pigs that are born from sows housed with less than 24 square feet of floor space.
Hinson’s event comes as the bill’s opponents are pummeling Iowa’s airwaves with a multi-million dollar ad campaign and as Congress debates whether to include the legislation in the next Farm Bill.
House lawmakers included the Save Our Bacon Act in the version of the Farm Bill that passed the chamber April 30. But Arkansas Sen. John Boozman, who chairs the Senate Agriculture Committee, did not include the measure in his own Farm Bill draft.
Hinson and other members of Iowa’s congressional delegation are pushing to include the language in the final bill as negotiations continue.
What would the Save Our Bacon Act do?
The Save Our Bacon Act would ban states from passing laws regulating the raising or breeding of livestock in other states “as a condition of sale or consumption.” States would still be able to pass laws regulating livestock raised in their own states.
The bill would counter laws such as California’s Proposition 12, which bans the sale of pork products in California unless the sow from which the butchered pig was born was housed with at least 24 square feet of floor space.
Many Iowa pork producers use smaller gestation stalls.
“One state shouldn’t be allowed to dictate to the other states what’s going on,” Brian Feldpausch, vice president of the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation, said at the news conference with Hinson. “One state can’t control what the other 49 do. It shouldn’t regulate how farmers and businesses operate across its borders and across the entire country.”
Why a group is running ads in Iowa opposing the Save Our Bacon Act
The American Meat Producers Association is running a multi-million dollar ad campaign opposing the legislation, saying it puts state agriculture laws at risk and calling it a “handout to China.”
“Now the Senate is considering Ashley Hinson’s Save Our Bacon Act in the Farm Bill — and it’s a scam,” the ad’s narrator says. “It’s a giveaway to Chinese corporations, wiping out laws that protect family farms, dumps more toxins in our communities and puts Iowa farms out of business.”
The group says the Save Our Bacon Act would benefit the largest pork producers, like Smithfield Foods, which is owned by a Chinese company, at the expense of smaller producers.
“The Save Our Bacon Act saves China’s bacon, not ours,” Clear Lake hog farmer Chris Petersen says in the ad.
Holly Bice, CEO of the American Meat Producers Association, said the group has spent $2.3 million on ads in Iowa so far and expects to spend over $3 million by the end of July. It’s part of a multi-state $30 million ad campaign opposing the law.
The group, which was formed to oppose the Save Our Bacon Act, is a 501(c)4 organization and does not disclose its donors.
“Our campaign is powered by a broad coalition of farmers, meat companies and organizations that care strongly about a thriving family farm economy,” Bice said. “And all of them agree that the SOB act would be a disaster for American agriculture.”
One Senate Republican targeted by the campaign, Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas, has dropped his support for the Save Our Bacon Act. Iowa’s all-GOP congressional delegation supports the legislation.
Dean Frazer, president of the Iowa Pork Producers Association, called the ads “a coordinated smear campaign” that he said is “spreading misinformation.”
“This is unacceptable, and Iowa Pork Producers will not back down,” he said. “We must continue to tell the truth that without a fix preventing state by state regulations like Prop 12 from creating chaos in the marketplace, family farms will be pushed out of business.”
How does Proposition 12 impact farmers’ costs, pork prices?
Opponents of Proposition 12 say it is increasing costs for farmers and consumers. Hinson said it “has a devastating impact on Iowa agriculture.”
“Prop 12 threatens to put Iowa family farms out of business,” Hinson said. “It costs as much as $4,000 per sow to comply with this regulation. Larger operations can absorb these costs. Small family farms can’t absorb those costs.”
Bice called those estimates “ridiculous.”
“For our farmers, the costs to convert were significantly less,” she said. “And so we’re looking at $600 to $800 per sow. It’s also important to know, no farmers were forced to convert or become Prop 12 certified. It is completely voluntary.”
Bice said a U.S. Department of Agriculture study last year found 27% of farms nationwide were either already certified with Prop 12 or working to become certified.
“If they lose Prop 12 they lose all of those investments and they will be financially devastated,” she said. “Because they need time to get those investments back and then to be able to make fair profits.”
Supporters of the Save Our Bacon Act say Proposition 12 has increased pork prices since it took effect. Bice disputes that and said there are other factors, like tariffs and labor costs, that have more of an impact on prices.
Bice said Proposition 12 has made it easier for new farmers to establish operations because it’s cheaper to raise pigs in a pasture or open pen than a facility with gestation stalls.
“The existence of Prop 12 makes it possible for younger farmers to be able to enter farming,” she said. “It’s a lower barrier for the cost of entry into farming.”
Blake Edler, a farmer from Marshall County who spoke at Hinson’s event, said there is “misinformation” about the animal welfare impacts of how Iowa farmers raise their hogs. He said sows can fight with each other if they aren’t kept apart.
“Putting them in a Prop 12 environment causes an increase in lameness, injury, health problems,” he said. “As a farmer, I deeply care about animal welfare, and I don’t want to see my animals suffer.”
The Save Our Bacon Act is an issue in Iowa’s US Senate race
Hinson used her event to criticize her Democratic U.S. Senate opponent, state Rep. Josh Turek.
“Allow me to be a little bit blunt here today,” she said. “Anyone who supports a mandate like Prop 12 isn’t someone who can genuinely represent the people of Iowa, especially not our farmers and our producers and Iowa agriculture.”
Hinson urged voters to “think deeply about the reality of what Josh Turek would do to our state, to our family farms and our way of life.”
“I will not stop working to overturn California’s devastating Prop 12,” she said. “And I will fight every single day to defeat Josh Turek and keep his anti-agriculture agenda out of the United States Senate.”
Turek’s campaign said he does not support Proposition 12. In a statement, he said he would support legislation that allows farmers to compete, including year-round E-15, right to repair, cracking down on monopolies and passing a Farm Bill.
“Ashley Hinson has repeatedly betrayed rural Iowa and voted to hurt farmers by supporting chaotic tariffs and a Middle East war that is driving up the cost of diesel and fertilizer,” Turek said. “To make matters worse, she forced her unpopular, pro-China ‘Save Our Bacon Act’ into the Farm Bill, jeopardizing passage of the Farm Bill that Iowans desperately need.”
Asked about the Save Our Bacon Act on June 22, Turek told reporters that he believes the issue should be decided at a state level.
“I think that this isn’t a federal issue,” he said. “I think that this is a state issue, and I think that what works best for Iowa farmers, we can decide that. And what works best for California, they can decide that there.”
Stephen Gruber-Miller is the Capitol bureau chief for the Des Moines Register. He can be reached by email at sgrubermil@registermedia.com, by phone at 515-284-8169 or on X at @sgrubermiller.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Why Ashley Hinson’s ‘Save Our Bacon Act’ is central to Farm Bill fight
Reporting by Stephen Gruber-Miller, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Stephen Gruber-Miller, Des Moines Register | USA TODAY Network
