DES MOINES, Iowa — Today the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry advanced the Farm Bill to the Senate floor without the Save Our Bacon Act (SOBA), the Proposition 12 preemption measure authored by Iowa Rep. Ashley Hinson in the House and pushed by Senator Joni Ernst in the Senate. The bill advanced without voting on the Save Our Bacon amendment, despite Senator Joni Ernst’s grandstanding efforts that were firmly rebuffed by Chairman John Boozman and Senator John Thune. Farm Action Fund welcomes the exclusion as a win for the independent Iowa producers who have carried this fight, including several who spoke at a press conference we organized last week. 

Iowa has lost roughly 90 percent of its independent hog farmers over the past 45 years to consolidation and four corporate packers who control 70% of the market, including China-owed Smithfield. As noted by several influential conservatives, including Laura Loomer and Tomi Lahren, the bill’s chief beneficiary is Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork producer, owned by China-based WH Group. A statement by a CCP controlled media outlet had previously stated that the Save Our Bacon Act, “would significantly increase China’s share of the U.S. pork market if it is successfully passed.”

One week ago, Farm Action Fund convened Iowa hog producers and family farm advocates at The Big Oak Barn near Elkhart to make clear how Save Our Bacon would harm family farmers. Hog farmer Chris Petersen described the impact of consolidation on farmers bluntly: “This is the game, people. Get rid of us.” John Gilbert, a Hardin County farmer, warned that the bill would erase his premium market and “punish anyone who has made the investments” to qualify for it. Aaron Lehman, President of the Iowa Farmers Union, pointed instead to country-of-origin labeling, antitrust enforcement, and local processing capacity, concluding that “the Save Our Bacon Act won’t get it done” for farmers.

President Joe Maxwell of Farm Action Fund issued the following statement after today’s vote:

“Rep. Hinson has sold this bill as a defense of Iowa agriculture. The farmers who showed up in Elkhart last week — people who have raised hogs in this state for decades — told us the opposite: it would hand their remaining markets to a Chinese-owned packer and give advantages to industrial livestock operations to consolidate even more. As the Farm Bill moves to the Senate floor, we applaud Chairman Boozman for keeping out this poison pill amendment that would severely hurt independent producers and threaten the ability of states to oversee their food and farm policies.”