Nearly 150 pork producers from California to New York were in Washington this week for the National Pork Producers Council's (NPPC) biannual Legislative Action Conference, timed as the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry voted its version of the farm bill, the Agricultural Act of 2026, out of committee.

Their central demand was an end to what NPPC calls the patchwork of state animal-housing laws set off by California's Proposition 12, which dictates how sows may be kept for pork sold in that state. "Our family farms cannot afford the uncertainty these conflicting state laws is creating," said NPPC president Rob Brenneman, a producer from Washington County, Iowa.

Spread across roughly 175 congressional offices, the farmers also asked for funding of the US Swine Health Improvement Plan, support for the Securing Agriculture's Workforce Act to provide year-round farm labour, and a quick completion of the Trump administration's review to renew the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

Producers were briefed by a bipartisan group of legislators including Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa, House Agriculture Committee chairman G.T. Thompson of Pennsylvania and Representative Shontel Brown of Ohio, and NPPC officers met US Department of Agriculture officials who run the programmes producers rely on.

NPPC presented Ernst and Thompson with its first "Bringing Home the Bacon" congressional award. The week closed with the council's annual Baconfest reception, attended by more than 1,100 members of Congress, staff, embassy officials and industry guests.

The council represents more than 60,000 US pork producers, and says the Prop 12 question must be settled in the final farm bill now that both chambers have moved their versions.

Source: Morning Ag Clips