Busybody California is behind the spike in pork prices
Zachary Faria
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Pork prices are on the rise again, and you can blame the busybody California Democratic Party and its environmental activists.
Pork belly prices hit their highest point this year at the end of June, as California’s “animal welfare” law was set to be enacted on July 1. The law requires more space for chickens, veal calves, and pigs in order for them to be sold, which is a problem for pig farmers given that pigs are greedy and violent. It was predicted before the proposition was even passed that this would cause pork prices to rise.
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Now we have an idea of how much.
By the end of July, pork belly prices had increased by over 105% compared to the same time last year. The price is just nine dollars short of the all-time high price from August 2021. Pork generally (and bacon specifically) is becoming far more expensive across the country, all because Democratic California politicians and environmental activists thought they could run farms better than actual farmers, who were not consulted with respect to the pig regulations.
The regulations manage to make it around $4,000 more expensive for each pregnant sow to be housed, squeezing out small and medium-sized farms and encouraging larger farms and pork sellers to pass that cost on to consumers. And the California law has a national effect because farms that do not comply with California’s regulations, regardless of their state, would be unable to sell in California at all.
Rather than writing off that large market, they instead comply and jack up prices for everyone.
If this seems like a familiar pattern, it is because California is doing the same thing with “zero-emissions vehicles.” California is leveraging its influence as the most populated state to de facto federally regulate things such as cars and pork through its own state standards, resulting in onerous requirements for businesses and more expensive products for normal people.
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This isn’t going to stop with pork and won’t stop at cars either.
California Democrats are going to continue to impose burdensome, expensive regulations that do not make sense on their own residents, and those regulations will become what businesses abide by for the rest of the country as well. That extra money you’re paying for bacon during your next grocery visit won’t be the last time California hits you with its moral superiority tax.