When California’s Proposition 12 was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in May 2023, it marked a turning point for animal welfare in the United States. For the first time, the court confirmed that a state could not only ban cruel confinement practices within its own borders, but also refuse to sell products from animals confined that way anywhere in the country. The pork industry warned this would fracture the national market, while many advocates hoped it would raise the floor for farmed animal welfare nationwide.

Now, nearly two years after Prop 12’s provisions took effect — and on the heels of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit upholding a similar provision (Question 3) in Massachusetts — we turn to USDA data to start evaluating what initial impacts this has had. In this resource, we analyze slaughter volumes, state-level export data, and national import/export flows, across pork, eggs, and veal.

What Happens When States Enact Animal Welfare Laws

The U.S. has few federal regulations governing the treatment of farmed animals. However, over the past several decades, 18 states have enacted laws to protect farmed animals, ranging from minimum care standards to prohibitions on practices like battery cages and gestation crates.

In the vast majority of cases, these laws only apply to production within the state.

California’s Prop 12 (2018), along with Massachusetts’ Question 3 (2016), added a new dimension to state-level welfare laws by also including sales provisions: with these laws in place, you cannot sell non-compliant pork, veal, or eggs in these states, regardless of where the animal was raised. Multiple states later added similar laws that apply to egg-laying hens, including: Arizona, Colorado, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington.

One initial dimension of our analysis was to look at states with welfare laws (both production laws and sales bans), when they were enacted, and whether that has affected slaughter numbers within that state. Reducing slaughter is not the purpose of these laws, but slaughter numbers may indicate shifts in production.

We can see in the above chart a mixed bag that brings a neat causal relationship into question. While we see a drop in slaughter in a state like California, for example, the gestation crate ban in Michigan — which came into effect in 2020 — hasn’t stopped the upward climb of pig slaughter in that state. Looking at the other states, any direct cause and effect is not borne out. What is certain, however, is that pigs in these states have higher welfare lives, and that producers are moving away from cages and crates.

It’s worth noting that the “higher welfare” states represented here (i.e., states with any additional welfare measures) account for very little of the actual national production of pig meat. All told, states with gestation crate bans make up about 5% of total production.

How The California Sales Ban Changed The Game

California alone consumes approximately 15% of the nation’s pork (the highest by volume but not per capita) while producing a much smaller percentage. In this context, a meaningful sales ban effectively forces producers in other states to either retrofit to California’s standards or lose access to the country’s largest market. The costs of retrofitting are contested: In a hearing, House Committee on Agriculture Chairman Glenn Thompson stated an estimated cost of $3,500 to $4,500 per sow, the source of which is a letter submitted by Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, and her number comes from an “industry estimate.” Meanwhile, actual costs on farm from producers have been pegged significantly lower — around $700, with a variety of positive effects on pig welfare noted.

The consumer cost of Prop 12 is hotly contested. A 2022 analysis predicted long-run price increases of around 7.7%. But one widely cited report from 2024 using retail scanner data found that prices for Prop 12-covered pork products in California rose an average of 20% after July 1, 2023. This “average increase” figure can be deceptive, however: according to the report, increases ranged very broadly from 9% to 41% by cut, with pork loin prices jumping 41%, fresh ham 20%, and bacon 16% — about $1.04 per pound more than the rest of the country. In this analysis, pork sausage, which is a processed product and hence exempt from Prop 12, showed no major price change — serving as somewhat of a natural control that could potentially confirm price increases were policy-driven. It’s important to note that the report in question has been broadly critiqued, and since it relies on privately held retail data, is not open to closer scrutiny. Nevertheless, the California Voter Guide for Proposition 12 predicted there may be price increases in-state. Even with knowing this, voters still overwhelmingly approved the measure.

The consequences extend beyond price tags. California’s share of national fresh pork volume has declined from 8.8% to 7.5%, with the steepest drops in the same cuts that saw the biggest price hikes. On the supply side, only 2% to 4% of pork was initially reported as Prop 12 compliant, though 27% of U.S. producers have since made or are working toward compliance investments.

The “Outlet Valve” Theory: Where Non-Compliant Pork Is Going

The result of the above, as some predicted, has been a split: two supply chains, one compliant and one not, with different economic incentives pulling them in different directions. Within a bifurcated system, where overall national production has not substantially decreased (and is currently increasing), it would be logical to assume an “outlet valve” effect. In other words, when pork can’t be sold in Massachusetts — or to a major consuming state like California — it has to go somewhere. In our analysis, international trade data from the USDA may indicate that it’s going abroad.

Over the past eight years, Mexico has become the dominant destination for U.S. pork exports, absorbing 37.3% of all exports in 2024, up from 30.1% in 2018. In absolute terms, pork exports to Mexico grew 50.5% over that period, reaching a record 2.66 billion pounds. Exports to Colombia surged 32% in 2024 alone.

The broader pattern is even more telling. When we group all export destinations that lack strict welfare requirements — Mexico, Colombia, the Philippines, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, and Guatemala — their combined share of U.S. pork exports rose from 40.9% in 2018 to 50.9% in 2024. More than half of all American pork now goes to markets where confinement standards are not a barrier to sale.

Meanwhile, Japan — historically the highest-value U.S. pork export destination — declined 13.5% from 2018 to 2024, its share falling from 20.7% to 14.8%.

One important caveat: China’s African Swine Fever crisis (2019–2021) massively distorted export data during this period, with China absorbing 28.5% of U.S. pork exports in 2020 before crashing back to 6.5% by 2024. But even stripping out China entirely, U.S. pork exports still grew 20% from 2018 to 2024, driven primarily by Mexico.

It’s important to note that the above analysis is limited by what the USDA data can and cannot show. There is no “compliant” vs. “non-compliant” classification in national trade statistics. Likewise, we cannot isolate Prop 12’s effects from other factors (such as African Swine Fever, COVID, and so on).

The Import Story Is More Complicated Than Expected

Another assumption is that potentially higher prices for compliant pork in California would attract imports from territories perceived to have higher welfare standards — particularly Canada and the European Union. The data doesn’t cleanly support this.

Canada supplies about 62% of U.S. pork imports, but its share has fallen from 76.6% in 2015 — and looking at the data, this seems to be cyclical in nature. After spiking 46% between 2019 and 2022, Canadian imports then dropped 16% by 2024 — and it’s worth noting that, despite perceived higher standards, Canada’s production guidelines would likely fall short of Prop 12’s welfare standards.

If aggregated, E.U. imports — which theoretically align well with Prop 12 because the E.U. generally prohibits gestation crates — peaked at 33.5% of total imports in 2018 and have since declined to 22.8%. The most surprising import growth came from Brazil, which increased 3.6 times between 2018 and 2024 — though from a small base. Brazil is not traditionally a high-welfare pork producer, suggesting this growth reflects price competitiveness rather than demand for compliant product.

The upshot of all of this is that import sources are diversifying, but not clearly toward higher-welfare origins. The compliance gap, if one exists, may be getting filled more by domestic producers retrofitting their operations than by international trade.

California’s Shifting Production Landscape

Zooming back in from national-level imports and exports, we turn back to what’s happening to animal production inside California itself, specifically with chickens. It’s important to note that Prop 12’s provisions in California do not apply to broiler chickens, and what’s more, the USDA does not report state-level data on egg-laying hen slaughter. At the national level, egg-laying hen slaughter is down by about 16% since 2018.

Egg production in California has visibly dropped, and based on the timing, it may be tempting to attribute this decline solely to Prop 12 effects. But avian influenza has been causing significant disruptions in the California egg industry — and across the country. Kate Greenberg, Colorado’s Commissioner of Agriculture, noted, “You may have seen egg shelves bare or purchase limits or prices very high right now with eggs. That is high path avian influenza having an impact on the marketplace, that is not the cage-free egg law. These just happened to coincide at the same time.” Bill Scebbi, Executive Director of the Colorado Egg Producers, echoed these sentiments when he said: “Cage-free legislation has nothing to do with the shortage of eggs. Nada. They can’t find eggs because there’s a shortage of hens throughout the United States due to avian influenza.”

In the chart above, we can see table egg production is in decline nationally, experiencing a 4% drop from 2024 to 2025, but the stacked area chart shows no major changes in the proportion of production by certain states to make up for lower production in others. There is always some push and pull in the proportions among states, but there are no observable, volatile swings that show major production shifts from one state to another. This lack of proportional shift seems to be a confirmation that the national decline in egg production is likewise largely affected by avian influenza rather than any specific welfare laws.

These patterns, and those of pork production, suggest that when laws come into effect, production may or may not adapt in place, or may relocate — but such decisions are likely highly contextual, and factors such as zoonoses, amongst others, need to be factored into any subsequent analysis.

Beef & Veal: A Different Logic

Beef production follows a different logic than the pig or chicken industries, due to a range of different factors. The U.S. is a net beef importer (unlike pork), and imports surged 37% from 2022 to 2024. But this is primarily a cattle-cycle story — the U.S. herd is at multi-decade lows — not a welfare-legislation story.

Where welfare measures do exist, the vast majority of them do not apply to adult cows, but instead target veal production. Veal makes up a substantially smaller subset of cow production more broadly.

Looking at veal alone, it’s easy to observe a downward production trend on a national level. This could mean that consumption of veal is decreasing. However, it’s difficult to determine if imports have made up for lower production, since import data does not specify between beef and veal.

Furthermore, there’s been a decrease in states reporting calf slaughter statistics in general. In particular, there’s lack of before/after data in states where veal crate restrictions have taken effect, except for Florida — but Florida’s veal production represents less than 1% of the national industry.

The USDA’s Problem With Data

In exploring the fine details of this analysis, one of the most persistent problems we ran into was fragmentary data. As we can see in our exploration of pig and veal data, there are inconsistencies all over the place. Below, we share a visual representation of missing slaughter data for pigs and veal, where states coded red are missing data for the noted year.

It would stand to reason that, if state-level data is missing, the national data is inaccurate, which would throw a wrench into any analysis. Fortunately, this does not seem to be the case. Taking veal slaughter as an example, the state-level data for veal slaughter in 2024 from reporting states sums to 146,900 individuals slaughtered — while the national-level data counts 234,800.

National-level data tends to be more coarse, while state-level data tends to be more granular. Furthermore, we don’t wish to ascribe any intent in a lack of data from a particular state on a particular year — it is quite possible these anomalies and gaps are entirely due to USDA disclosure rules that ostensibly exist to protect competition among producers. Nevertheless, these ever-shifting data gaps make longitudinal analysis challenging, especially at the state level where animal welfare laws have the most direct effects.

On a broader level, trust in the USDA under the Trump administration is in a process of “near-universal erosion,” showing a significant decline in confidence from all sides: not just among producers, but economists and retailers as well. This should be cause for concern for all parties involved, on both sides of the political aisle.

Takeaways For Advocates

Doing this type of analysis is difficult because understanding cause and effect is tremendously complicated. Understanding national-level import and export — or even trade among states — brings with it a broad number of variables such as retail and wholesale price, supply and demand pressures, subsidy dynamics, tariffs (both domestic and retaliatory), and more. Animal welfare regulations may complicate matters even further. As such, it’s important to read this analysis as a starting point for further exploration. We feel strongly that some of the findings here are correlational, but establishing causality would require a broader economic analysis.

With those caveats in mind, here is what we think the data, taken together, means for advocates.

The sales ban model is working — but “working” is more complicated than it sounds.

If Prop 12 has restructured the economics of the pork industry in California, this has happened concurrently to other, more macro shifts in the pork industry across the country. The data suggests that restructuring takes at least three forms simultaneously: some producers are retrofitting operations to meet compliance standards; some production is simply leaving California and surfacing in export markets; and some consumer demand is shifting. All three are happening at once.

However, it’s vital to note that the underlying purpose of animal welfare laws and sales bans is not industry disruption, nor consumer shifts. The straightforward purpose of Prop 12 (and other sales provisions) is to eliminate complicity with cruel practices, and it looks to be succeeding. “What was once near-total reliance on gestation stalls has given way to a new norm where roughly half of the nation’s sows now live in group housing,” notes Josh Balk. “And that percentage continues to climb.” To that end, Prop 12 is working, and is not causing the kind of disruption the industry may have used as a scare tactic.

If price impacts are real, they land unevenly — which matters for how advocates talk about this.

The premium attached to compliant product in California has been widely debated. If there is a tradeoff between compliance and price, it deserves honest engagement rather than dismissal. Acknowledging that welfare reform might have real costs for consumers — while making the case that those costs are justified, and that the status quo also carries costs — is a stronger long-term position than pretending the tradeoff isn’t there. It’s important to note that retail purchase data is proprietary, limiting our ability to analyze it independently. However, there is a case to be made that engaging with that data as it is (since we do not have our own retail price/purchase data to compare it to) is a sensible approach, provided we keep caveats about it in the back of our mind.

Multi-state expansion is necessary, but not sufficient on its own.

Public support for Prop 12-style laws remains consistently high nationally, and the momentum is real: Colorado’s and Michigan’s cage-free egg laws took effect in January 2025, Ohio’s gestation crate restrictions followed at the end of that year, and similar legislation has been introduced in Maryland, New York, Tennessee, and Vermont. Each new state that closes its market to non-compliant product makes domestic redirection less viable for producers. But as the domestic market for non-compliant product narrows, the pressure to seek international outlets may intensify rather than dissipate. Multi-state expansion is a necessary condition for the model to work — it’s not a sufficient one on its own.

The legislative threat has escalated and now deserves top-priority attention.

The EATS Act failed to pass in the last congressional session, but EATS-like language has been included in the House Agriculture Committee’s draft 2026 Farm Bill. If enacted, it could wipe out portions of Prop 12 and Massachusetts’ Question 3 — it would eliminate the legal mechanism by which any state can set welfare standards for agricultural products sold within its borders, with potential spillover effects on unrelated protections covering pesticide use, child labor, and puppy mills. Separately, the USMCA’s 2026 joint review is now underway, and industry groups have begun raising Prop 12 as a potential non-tariff trade barrier under the agreement. This is a second front worth monitoring closely. Advocates who have been focused on ballot initiative campaigns should be equally invested in what happens in Washington, DC over the next 18 months.

Small producers are taking the brunt of the impact — or are they?

One widely cited claim is that, in the first quarter of 2025, 12% of small pork operations (those with less than 500 sows) exited the market or shifted production away from breeding due to “compliance costs and uncertainty.” While we might logically assume that the farms most able to weather retrofitting costs and wait out uncertainty are large, vertically integrated operations — exactly the kind that welfare advocates are most concerned about — that 12% statistic is muddier than it seems. Further analysis of the numbers found a variety of complicating dimensions:

• Many of the farms “were consolidated into larger operations” — the large farm category actually increased in the same time period — a process which is described as “pretty natural.”
• 53% of the farms that exited were essentially hobby farms, “making between $1,000 and $9,999 annually.”
• The term “exited” is likewise tricky because it sounds as if these statistics are based on conscious choices by farmers. However, because the statistic includes very small operations such as “individuals and families selling produce from roadside stands,” the analysis notes that these producers “might have been a small farm in 2024, but they didn’t sell enough to cross the $1,000 threshold to be categorized as a small farm in 2025.”

Trust in the USDA data is itself an advocacy issue.

The USDA does not collect state-level data on egg-laying hen slaughter — only egg production. Veal data is fragmentary across multiple states where crate restrictions are in force. Collecting data in a country the size of the U.S. is certainly challenging, and the methodological quirks of the USDA’s data collection and disclosure rules mean that the very situations where welfare law effects would be most visible are, at least sometimes, where the public record goes dark. Pushing for consistent, transparent, and timely USDA state-level reporting — particularly in states with recent welfare legislation — is a concrete policy ask that serves accountability for industry and regulators alike. The USDA is currently experiencing extremely low levels of confidence in the validity of their data; though it may be a long road to rebuild trust with producers, economists, and retailers, taking concrete steps to address some of the above could help get them on their way.

Behind The Project

The Team

This project’s lead author was karol orzechowski (Faunalytics). Data analysis was provided by Hafsa and Mariam Ahmed, and May Alavi.

Hafsa Ahmed is a data scientist with experience in health informatics and a passion for animal advocacy that led her to volunteer with Faunalytics. She completed a MS in Data Science at the University of Manchester, where she worked on AI systems for diabetes. In her free time, she enjoys reading and rewatching the same TV shows for the nth time.

Mariam Ahmed is an animal advocate with an MSc in Data Science, looking to bridge those two worlds together. In their spare time, they like to crochet and endlessly fight against their doomscrolling habits.

May Alavi is a Law graduate and data engineer working with a B corp where she’s given volunteer hours to work on exciting and meaningful projects. She’s been a passionate animal advocate for six years and counting.

Acknowledgements

This project has been generously funded by Coefficient Giving.