Apples Most Consumed Fruit and SCOTUS Rejects Prop 12 Challenge

**Apples held the top spot for total fruit available for consumption in 2021 at more than 26 pounds per person.

USDA’s Economic Research Service adjusts food availability data for food spoilage, plate waste, and other losses to approximate actual consumption.

Americans consumed an average of 1.7 gallons of apple juice, roughly nine pounds of fresh apples, and a total of 3.1 pounds of canned, dried, and frozen apples in 2021.

**In a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court rejected a challenge to California’s Prop 12, approved by voters in 2018, that bans the sale of pork from pigs kept in tightly confined spaces.

The justices upheld a lower court’s decision to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the National Pork Producers Council and the American Farm Bureau.

The groups argued Prop 12 violated a constitutional provision called the Commerce Clause that gives the federal government the power to regulate interstate commerce, not the states themselves.

**The National Corn Growers Association urges the EPA to use biofuels to reduce automobile emissions.

NCGA Chairman Chris Edgington testified during a public hearing, expressing frustration that EPA only looked at one solution, electric vehicles, to lower greenhouse gas and pollutant emissions.

Edgington says, "EPA's proposal limits the ability of clean, low-carbon ethanol to contribute greater emission reductions and support affordable options."