Whatever you think of tariffs, it should be clear that now is not the time to introduce more uncertainty into agricultural markets. The “Food Security and Farm Protection Act” (S. 1326) — recently introduced in the United State Senate — would do exactly that, giving foreign adversaries like China an even bigger chokehold on American agricultural production while harming producers and principles of state sovereignty in the process.
S. 1326 is the latest iteration of 2023’s Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression (EATS) Act. It would create a private right of action for anyone “affected” by another state’s agricultural regulation to bring suit and invalidate it.
S. 1326, like EATS before it, is largely targeted at laws like California’s Proposition 12 and Massachusetts’s Question 3, which set animal welfare standards for certain animal products (like pork) sold in the state. Over a dozen other states — including Florida, Michigan, Oregon, Maine, Arizona and Colorado — have similar statutes addressing animal confinement and farm practices.
Proponents of S. 1326 have characterized such laws as part of a “war on breakfast.” Their solution: introducing legislation that could nullify more than 1,000 state-level agriculture laws that support our economies and feed our people.
Soon after Proposition 12’s passage in 2018, the National Pork Producers Council brought suit against California — with the fight eventually reaching the Supreme Court. Writing in support of the Golden State, Justice Gorsuch said: “While the Constitution addresses many weighty issues, the type of pork chops California merchants may sell is not on that list.”
Whatever you think of these laws, they fall well within the states’ reserved powers under the U.S. Constitution. They were democratically approved by voters, who are allowed to promulgate statutes regulating their own health and safety and reflecting their own ethical standards. We either believe in states’ rights or we don’t. But outside groups have not given up the fight, pushing bills like EATS and S. 1326 to create a legal backdoor for overturning the will of the American people.
The elephant in the room amidst all this discourse is Smithfield Foods, America’s largest pork producer, which is owned by a Chinese holding company that operates in coordination with the Chinese government. As such, the timing of S.1326’s introduction — April 8, 2025 — could not have been more darkly ironic. It’s the same day that China and the U.S. entered into an all-out trade war.
As the Chinese attack us from the outside, do we really want to give them an internal mechanism to also invalidate state laws they don’t like?
Then there’s the issue of stability. Proposition 12, which mandates that pigs raised for food have enough space to turn around during their pitiable lives, passed nearly seven years ago. Companies have largely adapted to California’s new requirements — including more than 230 out-of-state distributors and even large producers like Tyson Foods, JBS and, yes, Smithfield. Why, then, the need to create a vague, catchall mechanism to overturn not just state pork laws, but any state agriculture law? And do we really want to tell farmers that have retrofitted their operations to conform with new state requirements that their investments are worthless?
Add to that the fact that the USDA recently cancelled two programs giving food banks and schools funding to purchase from small farmers and ranchers. Passing S. 1326 will kill whatever competitive advantage these producers — who are more likely to employ traditional husbandry practices — have left. It will lead to even more consolidation in the food industry and more power for the biggest players. The administration is already considering a farm bailout, which cost taxpayers $23 billion the last time we did it. Creating new mechanisms to disrupt entrenched state regulations is a good way to make ever more handouts a necessity.
While criticizing California, no one in Congress seems to be up in arms about new laws banning entire categories of innovative food products, or other state-level food restrictions that come from the right, not the left. In Alabama and Florida, legislatures have banned lab-cultivated meat before it even hits the market. Setting animal welfare requirements is one thing — banning a perfectly viable product in order to protect in-state producers is an actual interstate commerce violation.
The fact is that every single state has laws regulating their agricultural industries — from invasive pest protections to safety inspections and sanitization requirements. S. 1326 could easily be weaponized to go after any such law that companies with the financial means deem inconvenient. It’s an affront to federalism, and a clear indication of the inherent unseriousness of this proposal.
The last time legislation like this had any momentum, more than 1,200 farms came out against it. Sixteen House Republicans signed a letter expressing dire concern that “it would provide [China-owned Smithfield] with a mechanism to bypass state-level laws and rapidly acquire even more American land and pork industry assets with no restraints at all.”
The only thing that’s changed: foreign powers like China are now even more of a threat than they were in 2023. In the absence of a trade war, overturning states’ ability to regulate their agriculture industries was a bad idea. Today, it’s unconscionable.
John Cleveland is a senior fellow with Wilberforce Institute. Marty Irby is president of Competitive Markets Action and secretary at the Organization for Competitive Markets.
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