Posted on 03/08/2014 11:22:49 AM PST by SeekAndFind
In 2008, California voters endorsed Proposition 2 which banned the confinement of animals. California egg producers had to ensure that chickens had enough room to move around which negated so-called “factory farming” and would end up raising the price of eggs by 20%.
Obviously this was a problem for California agriculture which would have trouble competing on price with free agriculture. And there’s only so much of a market for fair-trade free-range organic chickens lovingly raised in a Quaker school by social justice experts on a strict diet of granola and NPR broadcasts.
And so California’s reds decided to instead raise the price of eggs across America. Sounds fair, right?
Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster (D) said Tuesday morning he has filed a federal lawsuit against the state of California over the Golden State’s new regulations on enclosures that house egg-laying hens. The regulations, Koster alleges, violate the constitution’s Commerce Clause.
California voters in 2008 passed a ballot initiative that require larger enclosures for egg-laying hens. Farmers in California worried the new rules, which would increase their costs, would put them at a competitive disadvantage with egg farms in other states, so the state legislature passed a measure in 2010 to require out-of-state producers to comply with California rules.
That, Koster says, is unfair to his state’s egg producers.
“If California legislators are permitted to mandate the size of chicken coops on Missouri farms, they may just as easily demand that Missouri soybeans be harvested by hand or that Missouri corn be transported by solar-powered trucks,” Koster said in a statement.
California farmers must begin complying with the cage law beginning in 2015, under the terms of Proposition 2. The legislature requires out-of-state farmers to begin complying with the same rules by the end of that year.
Koster’s office estimated that Missouri egg producers would have to pay $120 million to expand the size of their coops, and that production costs would rise 20 percent.”
That’s the whole point. The left can’t compete on product or price, but it can kneecap everyone else as long as it has control over populous states. Businesses and individuals can flee California, but they can’t escape its regulatory creep.
The country is awash in ballot initiatives and legislative efforts to increase regulation of agriculture. Maine and Connecticut have passed GMO labeling laws, although they won’t go into effect until other states in the Northeast have passed labeling laws as well. Florida has laws outlawing the most common method of pork production. Several states have outlawed small chicken coops, and states have also banned the sale of foie gras and shark fins. Only California has had the chutzpah to impose the preferences of that state’s voters on the rest of the country.
Make no mistake about it, if egg prices increase by 20 percent, people who face tight budgets at the grocery store will suffer.
But the people who make these laws won’t and California voters have become mindless stooges of the left. And if you buy your eggs with EBT cards, you don’t tend to care how much they cost because you aren’t paying for them anyway.
That's how such decisions should be made, not at the point of a gun as many are suggesting.
The Organic label was developed to address many of the concerns people have. I notice that isn't enough; guns have been introduced into the picture to force their beliefs on people like me.
I just did a little research.
CA used to be the country's #1 egg producer but is #5 now, with it's production dropping from 8.5billion eggs per year to a little over 4billion.
CA is only producing 1,000 eggs per year, per resident.
Yep, only 1,000.
A male cougar.
Wait. Aren’t all males cougars? Or is it only all rich males?
usconservative post 44
CORRECTION: That’s only ONE HUNDRED eggs per year per person.
And the law hasn’t even taken effect yet. Wait until it does and CA is producing 10 eggs per person/year!
I suspect at the rate California is hemorraging other businesses, it won't be long before the rest of the egg producers either leave the state or are forced out of business as a result of this ridiculous law ... and that's the way it should be. When a state makes it intolerable to do business and compete, they'll have only themselves to blame when business' leave and they lose their tax base.
Two states leading that trend are California and Illinois. Both blue states. No surprise there.
Looking into my crystal ball, I can forsee a resurgence in the nearly forgotten art of chicken thieving and cattle rustling. I am setting up a website to educate those interested in gaining the necessary skills, for a small fee of course. I am also adding two other courses, Fishin with Dynamite, and of course, Catfishing Made Easy with the Old Crank Telephone at a small addition charge. These are skills that will last a lifetime. Not required but highly recommended, Sprinting While Carrying a Burden. These courses are accelerated as the life expectancy in some states of my students can be somewhat short. Cash only. No payment plans available.
Good point, Dale. That’s why I get my food-machine byproduct at a supermarket where it’s wrapped in plastic. I hire out the poop collection process to the dudes at the ranch.
It’s a fair business exchange. If folks want to pay more for food that’s been cared for in a more expensive way, all power to ‘em, this is still the United States, friend. What must be resisted is the liberal urge to force everybody to also buy more expensive food as a way of salving their own consciences.
(My wife sez to extend her good wishes to yours, Dale.)
We have always been an unruly class.
“That sow is ready to be bread.”
Bwaaaaahahahaha! Ya got me! As I always say;
“Spell czech is knot yore friend!
I love funny typos, and can laugh at myself quite easily! Thanks for catching that! I gotz a big smile on my face right now!
And that’s the best part about us! :-)
A point lost on many on this thread --- Game, Set, Match: Cyber Liberty.
Sprinting While Carrying a Burden has always been a popular course in the inner city. It’s a companion course with Hurling Paving Bricks Through Windows.
Why?
Brains....... wisdom
Sometime I just can’t help it. the wisdom just bubbles up and can’t be stopped.
It’s like a damn maricle
I thought I was gonna get a dressing-down from you, turns out not. :)
We had a very tight group way-back-when. Its broader now. I like it either way.
The thing I am most distressed about are the Republican partisans who would insist I vote for Andy Cuomo for President if he had a Republican label.
A lot of people have forgotten, or maybe never knew, that the 'Organic' label was designed to cover those types of food.
Like the homosexual lobby, they aren't content to have their own foods, they must have everyone accept their foods. Even a bunch of Freepers.
Give me my inorganic foods and leave me the hell alone!
I wasn’t raised on a farm, but my parents were and are familiar with the “Go get dinner from out back” routine. Just watch out for the pinfeathers.
Story from my yout: I was about five when I had a Rhode Island Red decide to chase me around my Gramma’s chicken yard. Gramma “went out back” that day to fetch us dinner, and the Chicken and Dumplins were extra good that night.
It is a sad day when people who know nothing about food production suddenly start demanding you raise it “their way or else!”
We’ve seen lots of that recently.
Comes from hanging out with yous guys for over a decade and a half.
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