A Sonoma County Ballot Measure Seeks to Outlaw Big Animal Farms. Farmers Say It Would Be Devastating

More than 300,000 hens live on Weber Family Farms in Petaluma. Some are certified organic, meaning they eat organic food and roam cage-free through an old, wooden hen house, clucking in the fresh air. The rest are conventional hens and inhabit a dimly lit warehouse where they lay eggs once a day, which ultimately end up in supermarkets around the Bay Area and in southern California. 

The farm has been in the Weber family for four generations. Mike Weber is the current co-owner, and while his farm is humane-certified — meaning a third-party animal welfare expert has visited and given their stamp of approval — he’s facing closure if Sonoma County voters approve Measure J.

“This is designed to put agricultural interests like ours out of business,” Weber said about the measure, which asks voters to ban certain large farms in the county in this November election.

Measure J borrows the federal definition of a large concentrated animal feeding operation or CAFO. Under the Clean Water Act, the Environmental Protection Agency defines a large CAFO by the number of animals it has — 700 or more cows, 82,000 or more laying hens, for example. 

“It’s not based on how well you manage your flocks, how well you take care of your animals and the level of animal welfare you have,” Weber said. “It’s all about a number. And if you exceed that number, you’re punished, and you’re shut down.”

Proponents of Measure J have identified 21 large CAFOs in Sonoma County — including Weber’s — that fall under this CAFO definition and would be forced to downsize or shut down altogether if it passes. 

“This is a pretty drastic measure,” said Silvia Secchi, a professor who studies agriculture at the University of Iowa. “I think it’s really interesting because, finally, there are some stakes attached to this definition that have not been there before.”

According to Secchi, this is the first attempt ever in the U.S. to ban large CAFOs outright. Other states, including North Carolina, have passed moratoria, but this is the first time they would be eliminated altogether, and existing ones would have to shut down or be forced to move.

Proponents of Measure J argue these kinds of large farms are inherently cruel to the animals. 

Mary Bull, a fruit and vegetable farmer in Sebastopol, plans to vote “yes” on J. She said she has seen photos of farms like Weber’s and doesn’t think they should exist in Sonoma County.

“It’s just too crowded,” she said. “It’s just devastating, horrendous cruelty to the animals.”

The Coalition to End Factory Farming, a group of animal rights and environmental organizations, put forward the measure. Another big sponsor is Direct Action Everywhere, a Berkeley-based animal rights activist group known for its open rescue demonstrations. Last year, the organization’s co-founder was jailed for breaking into Petaluma poultry farms — including Weber’s — as part of an animal welfare demonstration. 

All the large poultry and dairy farms in Sonoma County are certified organic — which addresses both the manner in which foods are grown and animals are raised.

As for the environmental concerns, CAFOs are a major source of air and water pollution nationally. Supporters of Measure J say outlawing them in Sonoma County would benefit local waterways.

“They’re one of the most egregious trashers of the planet, and they’ve got to go,” Bull said.

However, according to the local water quality control board, animal agriculture does not pose an outsized threat to waterways in Sonoma County when compared to other land uses, including commercial vineyards and residential areas.

That’s because of “very low herd densities on grazing lands, the predominance of pasture-based, organic dairies (which sharply contrasts with operations located in the Central Valley), and the ongoing implementation of the Regional Water Boards’ regulatory permitting programs for animal-based ag operations,” a spokesperson for the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board wrote in an email to KQED. “These programs are designed to ensure that such operations do not cause or contribute to water quality impairments, and rates of compliance are relatively high.”

Measure J’s opponents include the county board of supervisors, various city councils and both the Democratic and Republican parties of Sonoma County. 

Whether it passes or not, Secchi said the measure could still have ripple effects outside of Sonoma County and even outside California. She points to other pieces of legislation that have passed via ballot measure in the state, like Proposition 12, which prohibits producing and selling meat in California from animals that were raised in “extreme confinement.” The measure faced intense backlash from the pork industry and even went before the U.S. Supreme Court.

If a ban on large CAFOs went into effect across California, it could just displace livestock operations to places like Secchi’s home state of Iowa that have looser regulations for animal welfare, environmental pollution and even child labor laws. 

“People need to also understand that depending on how you do things in California, you do have these indirect effects out of state and need to be mindful of that,” she said.

Still, she added, it’s important to keep scrutinizing the livestock industry. Most meat eaters in the U.S. don’t think hard enough about where their food comes from, she said. 

“I do think that all this attention is a signal that people are thinking about these issues,” Secchi said.