I've written about California's Proposition 12 before. This is the law that prohibits pork to be sold in California from farms that use gestation crates. I just read an article on porkbusiness.com titled "Prop 12 hits struggling Californians the Hardest with No Relief in Sight".

The gist of the article is in the title, pork prices have gone up in California by as much as 20% and those most affected are the lower income folks. The increase in cost per pound averaged about $0.60/lb or about $30 per consumer/year based on average consumption. If all it takes is $30 dollars per year to end one of the cruelest practices in modern agriculture, I'd make the deal!!

The life of a commercial sow!!

Let me give you the breakdown of a commercial sow's life. Prospective future sows at 6 months old are typically fed a product called Matrix that is used to synchronize their reproductive cycles so a whole group can be bred at the same time. She will be artificially inseminated and 110 days later loaded into a farrowing crate for the first time. After giving birth, she will stay in the crate for about 24 days when the piglets are removed, and she is moved to a gestation stall. A gestation stall is 24 inches by 72 inches with a slatted floor and no bedding. No ability to turn around, lay out comfortably or express any natural pig behaviors. The sow will be bred 3 to 5 days after weaning and spend the next 110 days in the gestation stall until she goes back to the farrowing crate. This cycle of gestation stall to farrowing crate will continue until she dies or is no longer productive.

Gestation crates are pure greed and evil!! They answer the question: "how can we pack as many sows as possible into the smallest possible area and pay as little labor as possible to care for them?"

Its time commercial pork woke up and quit trying to be the cheapest product on the shelf, started injecting some morality into the management and listened to customer's concerns about health, ethics and food quality.

How sows should be cared for!!

In the bygone days of when small farms were the norm, a good sow was farm royalty. In keeping with tradition, our sows give birth in large, well bedded pens with plenty of room to move around. It is a joy to watch them carry mouthfuls of hay to build a nest ahead of piglets arriving. Piglets are weaned as the sow's milk naturally starts to dry up. By that point, the sows almost seem relieved to get a break from their rowdy offspring. Our sows are bred naturally and only after we feel they have had enough time to fully recover from raising their previous litter. We cling to the idea that the farm's success or failure is very much dependent on how well we care for those all-important farm matriarchs!! 

Getting to the point!!

If you get nothing more from this email, take this to heart, your food choices matter! How you choose to spend your food dollar may be the only vote that really makes a difference anymore. Your individual choice can reflect your personal values in your life but if you, your friends and neighbors all start making choices in the same direction real change can happen. Proposition 12 was approved by the people of California. As a farmer, I understand and respect that decision.

By talking directly with the farmers that produce the food you serve your families, you have an unparalleled level of access to information about how the animals are raised, what they are fed and how they are cared for. Thank you for your continued support as we try to provide you with the tastiest, healthiest and most naturally produced beef, pork and lamb available!