![Ag News: California Cage-free Initiative](http://townsquare.media/site/113/files/2014/12/74003958.jpg?w=980&q=75)
Ag News: California Cage-free Initiative
**A California initiative requiring egg-laying hens to be “cage-free” and would prohibit the sale of pork and veal from animals raised in housing banned in 2008 was approved for the November ballot.
In a recent Capital Report, the National Pork Producers Council wrote “Animal-rights groups, including the Humane Society, collected more than 660,000 signatures for the measure, well over the 366,000 needed.
According to agweb.com, California voters approved an initiative in 2018 that banned so-called battery cages for egg-laying hens, gestation stalls for sows and crates for veal calves.
**U.S. farmers are already hurting, thanks to Mexico’s retaliatory tariffs for U.S. import taxes on steel and aluminum, but the pain is expected to increase sharply.
Agri-Pulse reports the cost of Mexican tariffs hasn’t yet reached the intolerable level for the dairy industry, but for crops like potatoes, the damage is mounting.
Right now, Mexico is hitting most U.S. cheese exports with tariffs ranging between 10 and 15 percent with both Mexican consumers and U.S. farmers paying the new tax.
**Senate Ag committee Chairman Pat Roberts, of Kansas, and Ranking Democrat Debbie Stabenow, of Michigan, announced the Senate-approved reauthorization of the Pesticide Registration Improvement Act.
Roberts tells agrimarketing.com, just-passed Senate Farm Bill provides farmers and ranchers with certainty in a tough farm economy.
A variety of ag, non-ag, environmental and labor interests support enactment of PRIA.
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