Farmers in California have time until 2015 to comply and the law prohibits the sale of the eggs from hens raised in cages. Later, California legislators expanded the law to ban in that state the sale of eggs from any hens that were not raised in compliance with California’s animal care standards.
Missouri is the second largest egg exporter to California and many of this state hens are raised in tight cages. The actual dispute is, in those conditions, both about animal rescue and protection and about economic interests. Missouri Farm Bureau President Blake Hurst considered the California law a possible precedent in which the biggest states can effectively set agricultural policies for all the states affecting the free trade among the states, that is working by tradition. On the other part, the animal rescue and protection group Farm Sanctuary said by one of his representatives that “it’s a real embarrassment for the state of Missouri to defend a practice that is horrible and abusive to animals.”
