Fears of an egg and pork shortage could be over easy thanks to lawmakers’ scramble to get a bill on Gov. Charlie Baker’s desk that pushes off the start of strict new animal welfare regulations.
The last-minute legislative deal to rewrite key sections of a voter-approved animal welfare law approved in a 2016 ballot question changes the rules for egg producers and gives a grace period to meat farmers to get into compliance with new cage standards after industry groups warned of looming shortages.
The new law takes effect on Jan. 1.
“There was a reason that the 2016 ballot question required a two-year transition between the promulgation of the regulations and the implementation date. Significant infrastructure upgrades are needed to comply with this new law, changes made even more difficult with materials and labor shortages due to COVID-19,” state Sen. Jason Lewis said.
The 2016 ballot question overwhelmingly approved by 77% of voters bars Massachusetts farmers from holding animals in confines considered cruel. It also bans the sale of eggs, pork and veal from animals held in violation of the new standards even if the products were manufactured in other states.
The law originally defined cruel confinement as any enclosure that prevents “lying down, standing up, fully extending the animal’s limbs, or turning around freely.”
For egg-laying hens, that meant at least 1.5 square feet of “usable floor space” per hen. But advancements in the past five years have most egg manufacturers using vertical aviary systems with a standard of 1 square foot of floor space per hen — a standard on which industry representatives and animal rights groups agree.
Lewis, the lead Senate negotiator on the compromise bill, said the agreement to give a single square foot of space for birds in multitiered aviaries “is considered as humane or even more humane than the standard included in the 2016 ballot question.”
Single-level enclosures would still need to offer 1.5 square feet per hen, according to the compromise bill.
When it comes to pork, the deal simply pushes out the start of new cage regulations to Aug. 15.
“I want the pork industry to know in no uncertain terms that there will be no further extensions for them in Massachusetts,” said Lewis, D-Winchester.
In a joint statement, the Humane Society, Animal Legal Defense Fund, Animal Rescue League of Boston and Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals praised legislation saying it “strengthened the existing law.”
Baker is likely to sign the bill and last week urged lawmakers to send a bill to his desk quickly with the meat and egg shortages still looming.
Herald wire services contributed to this report.
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