Gov. Ron DeSantis is giving carnivores something to cheer about, as he promises to protect animal products from the left.
"A lot of this ESG (environmental, social, and corporate governance) movement has agriculture in the crosshairs. They don't want people eating meat," DeSantis said at a "meet and greet" event in Clayton County, Iowa.
The Governor promised to protect the meat supply if he gets elected nationally.
"I can tell you when I'm President, I'm not going to let anyone take away your meat, that's for sure. I mean, I couldn't subsist if I didn't have the good meat. So don't worry about that," DeSantis added.
The Governor voiced similar themes during an interview on the Doug Wagner Show Friday.
"We're also going to crack down on states like California that are trying to tell Iowa pork producers how they should be producing pork. That's not the role for a liberal state to be telling the states in the Midwest. So help is on the way," DeSantis promised.
"They are going for the jugular when it comes to agriculture. Look don't worry about me. Like, I want people eating meat, I want people — we got to do that. I mean, so some people on the left don't like that. We know it's important, and that's something that you can count on me for."
These are just the Governor's latest comments in defense of the livestock sector.
The Governor, while at a Never Back Down bus tour stop in Iowa back in August, said his presidential administration would not "let California regulate how farmers in Iowa conduct their business on things like, you know, these pork producers have to follow California law to do this stuff."
"It doesn't even make any sense," DeSantis said.
Earlier this year, in a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of a California law called Proposition 12, which mandates more room for breeding pigs. The Court sided with the state against the National Pork Producers Council and the American Farm Bureau Federation, industry groups that contended California law would impose unreasonable burdens on pig farmers.
The California law holds "no person shall knowingly engage in a commercial sale within the state of whole pork meat for human food if the whole pork meat is the product of a breeding pig, or the product of the immediate offspring of a breeding pig, that was confined at any time during the production cycle for said product in an enclosure that fails to comply with all of the standards set forth in Chapter 10, Article 3, regarding Breeding Pigs."
This includes pig meat brought in from out of state, meaning California markets would be closed to flesh from slaughtered pigs treated worse than state law requires.
California statute dictates that the "enclosure shall allow the breeding pig to lie down, stand up, fully extend limbs, and turn around freely," with "a minimum of 24 square feet of usable floor space per breeding pig." But that's a bridge too far for the purveyors of porcine flesh.
The National Pork Producers Council has denounced the standards as "arbitrary" and "unconstitutional," and DeSantis' position accords with that industry group.
Ironically given the Governor's take, more than two decades ago Florida passed a constitutional amendment stipulating that "no person shall confine a pig during pregnancy in a cage, crate or other enclosure, or tether a pregnant pig, on a farm so that the pig is prevented from turning around freely, except for veterinary purposes and during the pre-birthing period."
No comments:
Post a Comment