OPINION:
As if they were missionaries of the Church of Soy, vegans want to convert you and everyone else to their bacon-free lifestyle.
Most people are steadfast adherents to the omnivorous diet — the diet humans have had for thousands of years. In fact, experts think eating meat is what allowed the human brain to grow bigger over time.
It’s little surprise then that the smaller brains at PETA have found difficulty in converting the masses to heavily processed burger imitations. So they are shifting strategic positioning to, “How can we make meat more expensive to buy?”
This strategy involves legislative change that would ban farmers from using conventional animal husbandry and adopt more costly and less productive methods. This undermines farmers who have made investments in their infrastructure and the American consumer who will face higher prices and fewer choices.
And this game plan is already underway.
Today, California voters are very likely to approve a ballot measure that will ban the import, sale and production of conventional pork and eggs from out of state.
A decade ago, California passed similar laws that ended up increasing the price of eggs and banning the import of them from states that don’t comply with California’s farming standards. Putting aside the potential violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Commerce Clause, according to a Cornell analysis these laws resulted in 18 percent higher egg prices for Californians.
Luckily, our federal legislators can stop California’s overreach. The farm bill, stuck in negotiations between the House and Senate, contains a House-passed measure known as the Protect Interstate Commerce Act (PICA). California should not be allowed to dictate farming practices to the rest of the country, and it should not be allowed to enact trade barriers that prevent its citizens from purchasing lawfully produced agricultural products.
California’s unconstitutional actions raise the cost of food nationwide and will cost taxpayers as well.
Consider the SNAP program (food stamps). The USDA reports that cage-free eggs average $1.23 more per dozen. Extrapolating from this data point, we can conclude that if all the eggs sold today were from cage-free only flocks, the increased cost to the nation’s consumers would be $4.56 billion. Eleven percent of the U.S. population is on food stamps, so the impact of increased costs without PICA in the farm bill would increase the cost of egg purchases under SNAP by roughly $627 million.
Pork is also targeted under the California proposition being voted on today. With around 80 percent of pork coming from farmers utilizing individual maternity pens, forcing them to switch away from this system would translate to an estimated increase in cost of $491 million for the food stamp program.
In other words, a bacon and eggs breakfast would require an additional $1 billion in food costs on food stamp recipients — and cost billions more for consumers generally.
American farmers provide the essential service of feeding this country’s 325 million hungry mouths and many more around the world. Supporting this work is something Republicans and Democrats can agree on. As the final farm bill is being hashed out, PICA ought to be included in order to prevent a future where vegan advocacy groups, including PETA and the Humane Society of the United States, can use one state to try to impose regulations on the rest of America.
• Richard Berman is the president of Berman and Co., a public relations firm in Washington, D.C.
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