Minnesota Star Tribune Letter to the Editor: This is an interstate commerce issue
Minnesota Star Tribune Letter to the Editor: This is an interstate commerce issue
Sonja Trom Eayrs argues that a bipartisan farm bill provision would harm independent farmers and accelerate consolidation in agriculture. It is a serious claim. The problem is that she never explains how California’s Proposition 12 solves the problem she describes (“Family farms are disappearing. Congress could make it worse,” Strib Voices, May 27).
Minnesota has lost hog farms over several decades. So have many other states. Farm numbers have declined while production has increased. Technology changed. Genetics improved. Operations grew larger. Capital requirements increased. Those trends were well underway long before Proposition 12 existed.
Yet readers are asked to assume that preserving California’s production mandates is somehow the key to protecting independent farmers.
The actual question before Congress is different.
The House-passed farm bill includes a bipartisan provision addressing whether states may impose production requirements beyond their own borders as a condition of market access. California remains free to regulate farms within California. The issue is whether California should be able to dictate production standards for farmers in Minnesota and elsewhere.
Reasonable people can disagree about animal housing standards — and on this issue the American Veterinary Medical Association does not support California’s arbitrary and unscientific approach that has no demonstrable benefit to animals. People can also disagree about consolidation and the future of rural communities.
But that is not the question Congress is being asked to answer.
The question is where state authority ends and interstate commerce begins.
That is a question of interstate commerce, constitutional structure and the practical operation of a national market. It deserves to be characterized accurately and debated on those terms.
Andy Curliss, Des Moines
The writer is chair of the Carver Center for Agriculture & Nutrition