On November 5, several ballot initiatives around the country pertained to animal agriculture, at least three of which were front and center to the Animal Agricultural Alliance (AAA). On today’s BeefBuzz, Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster Ron Hays is talking with Hannah Thompson Wieman President and CEO of the AAA about the three major ballot initiatives.
“Unfortunately, there is never a dull moment when it comes to monitoring issues impacting animal agriculture, and that was certainly true this past election season,” Wieman said. “State-level ballot initiatives are nothing new, but now activist groups are taking it a step further and going all the way to a hyper-local level, even to the city level. They see that as a stepping stone to their twenty-year approach plan.”
The City of Denver experienced a processing plant and fur ban ballot initiative from Pro Animal Future. In Sonoma County, California, a ballot initiative was introduced as a factory farm ban, but “factory farm” was defined as a concentrated animal feeding operation, which would have affected roughly twenty farms, including dairies, egg, broiler, and duck producers. The City of Berkley was presented with a similar ban on factory farms and confined animals that would have affected a horse racing facility.
“All of those measures that we follow originated from animal activist groups,” Wieman detailed. “On the positive side, in Denver, we saw both of those initiatives fail by a pretty healthy margin. Eighty-five percent of voters in Sonoma County opposed that ban on farms of a certain size. While the initiative in Berkley did pass, because nobody really worked to oppose it. It was more of a symbolic move for them, and they are really heralding that as a victorious sign of what is to come.”
Wieman expects the local-level ballot initiative trend to continue, especially with the change in administration making activist groups feel like federal-level advances won’t get far. They are already sharing a list of states and cities that they plan to introduce similar measures to in 2026.
“Berkley is a great example of what happens when we don’t engage,” she said. “The animal agriculture community had other places to focus, but it is a good test case where if we don’t intervene, the ballot initiatives are likely to pass because voters are not informed. They do not understand the issues. When a lot of these things are put on the ballot, they are overly simplified. They are made to sound like a good thing for animal welfare and the environment, so if we aren’t engaged and a part of these discussions, unfortunately, it might be a different story.”
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