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Lusk and Mullally say that led to price increases as high as 33 percent per dozen. Supply declined, and prices rose.īy July of 2016, the number of egg-laying hens and eggs produced in California had dropped by 35 percent. “Leading up to the point at which the policies went into place, the number of eggs wasn’t different, but they were coming from other places.”īut once the laws went into effect, many of those imports stopped because out-of-state producers were not all following the confinement space rules under the laws. California retailers were importing eggs from other states to make up for the shortfall,” Lusk said.
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“Initially, consumers got the same amount of eggs. So even before 2015 there were fewer hens, and production in the state started to drop. Their findings were reported in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics.Ĭalifornia egg producers started implementing the new rules years before required by removing one or more hens from battery cages that often house multiple birds. Jayson Lusk, a distinguished professor and head of Purdue’s Department of Agricultural Economics, and Conner Mullally, an assistant professor in the Food and Resource Economics Department at the University of Florida, analyzed 16 years’ worth of egg production and pricing data from California and surrounding states from before and after the law went into effect.
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Taking effect in January 2015, the law requires that confined spaces be large enough to allow animals to “turn around freely, lie down, stand up, and fully extend their limbs.” The law banned production and sale of products that didn’t meet these requirements, and another law required products imported from other states follow the same rules. The 2008 Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act, approved by 63 percent of California voters, requires animal producers to increase the amount of space available to animals in chicken battery cages, veal crates and sow gestation crates. An analysis of the laws’ effects on egg production and prices in California could inform other states considering similar legislation. Laws that changed animal confinement standards in California raised the price of eggs dramatically upon adoption and have kept prices higher than had the laws not been enacted, according to a Purdue University study. A study by Jayson Lusk, head of Purdue’s Department of Agricultural Economics, revealed California’s animal welfare laws led to higher egg prices, lower production.