Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Fresno, California, on Monday against a California law which does not allow eggs to be sold within the state unless the chickens were raised by required standards, the Associated Press reported.
According to Koster, the law infringes on interstate commerce protections because it imposes the requirements on farmers who do not live or work in the state, the AP reported.
A ballot initiative passed by voters from 2008 requires egg-laying hens, pigs and calves to be raised in a space where they can stand, turn and extend their limbs, according to the AP. Farmers were given until 2015 to make the necessary changes.
After the initiative passed, farmers raised concerns over being disadvantaged by out of state sellers who did not have to comply with the initiative, the AP reported. In response, legislators amended the law in 2010 to require all eggs sold in the state to meet California's animal care standards in order to prevent state residents from salmonella and other illnesses.
"If California legislators are permitted to mandate the size of chicken coops on Missouri farms, they may just as easily demand that Missouri soybeans be harvested by hand or that Missouri corn be transported by solar-powered trucks," Koster said, according to the AP.
Of the 1.7 billion eggs Missouri farmers produce a year, about 540 million are sold in California, based on Koster's lawsuit filing, the AP reported.
After Iowa, Missouri is the second biggest egg exporter to California but many of Missouri farmers do not meet California's new standard, and it would cost them about $120 million to meet them by 2015, or simply shut down, according to the AP.
Animal-rights activist have called the lawsuit an embarrassment for the state of Missouri who continue to insist on using an inhuman environment, the AP reported. The Humane Society of the United States said in a statement states "have the right to pass laws that protect the health and safety of their residents."
"Attorney General Koster's lawsuit targeting California's laws, filed just to curry favor with big agribusiness, threatens state laws across the country dealing with agriculture and food safety," Jennifer Fearing, the group's senior state director for California told the AP.
Fearing also argued the law is simply to prevent residents from eggs produced by hens in "battery cages" because they are more likely to have salmonella,
The Missouri Farm Bureau President Blake Hurst said the lawsuit is necessary in order to prevent a precedent allowing bigger states to place agricultural standards imposed on other states.
"A pretty good tradition in this country that's worked pretty well is that we have free trade among the states, and we would not want to see that changed," Hurst told the AP.
