• U.S. pork prices could climb 50% due to a new California animal welfare law, a pork producer CEO said.
• The law means that farmers in California, or who sell in California, must give more space to breeding pigs.
• The CEO of Christensen Farms said it could cost the industry “hundreds of millions of dollars” to comply.

The CEO of one of the largest pork producers in the United States has said that a new California pig farming law could cause pork prices to increase by up to 50%.

The animal welfare law, due to come into force next year, requires farmers to give more space to laying hens, veal calves and breeding pigs. AP reported that only 4% of hog farms are currently in compliance with the new rules and as a result California is likely to lose almost all of its pork supply unless the courts intervene or the state does. temporarily authorizes the sale of non-compliant meat. .

The law also applies to producers who sell to California from other states, Insider’s Hilary Brueck reported.

The National Pork Producers Council has asked the US Department of Agriculture for federal help to cover part of the costs of modernizing pig production facilities, the publication reported. Glenn Stolt, CEO of Christensen Farms, told Fox Business on Monday that the law would cost the industry “hundreds of millions of dollars for what we believe will do nothing to improve animal welfare, for certainly improve environmental stewardship, worker safety, as well as food safety.

The result would be a rise in pork prices, he said. “We estimate that you could see the initial prices go up to 30% to 50%.”

Stolt told Fox Business his farms would no longer be able to sell pork in California because “we are not currently set up to meet the requirements as of Jan. 1.”

Barry Goodwin, an economist at North Carolina State University, told AP that a farm with 1,000 breeding pigs would expect to pay about 15% more per animal under the new rules.

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California, the most populous state in the United States, eats far more pork than it produces. Rabobank, a global food and agriculture financial services company, said restaurants and grocery stores in California use about 255 million pounds of pork per month, or about 15% of all pork consumed in the country. . Its farms produce around 45 million pounds, AP reported.

The California Restaurant Association told AP it was also “very concerned” about potential pork supply issues and subsequent cost increases.

More than 60% of California voters said yes to the farm animal containment proposal in 2018. It was backed by animal rights activists, such as the Humane Society of the United States, which sponsored the proposal.