Commentary: What is the Save Our Bacon Act in the Farm Bill?

I’ve spent years working alongside people who care about how animals are treated in our food system. Right now, much of that work revolves around a single question: What happens to a mother pig who simply wants to turn her body around?

That’s the issue at the center of a bill called the Save Our Bacon Act, which was introduced in Congress in July. Large corporations and foreign-owned animal factories are using that cutesy name to disguise a bill that will do real harm. It’s a rebrand of a bill that has failed under other names for nearly two decades, including the King Amendment and the EATS Act.

Each version does the same thing: It strips states of the power to set their own standards for the food sold within their borders, and it nullifies laws voters have already passed to protect people and animals.

The point about a mother pig being able to turn around relates to a standard set by California’s Proposition 12, passed by voters in 2018, requiring that pork sold in the state come from pigs with enough room to stand up, turn around, and lie down. This law was passed because the cruel standard at that time was to limit mother pigs to live in a gestation crate where that was not possible.

The pork industry didn’t want to change the policy because they view pigs simply as commodities and not sentient beings. So it challenged Proposition 12 all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and lost. Unable to win in court or at the ballot box, the industry is now asking Congress to erase these laws by federal fiat through the Save Our Bacon Act. Big corporations do not want constraints on their inhumane treatment of animals.

States Rights

If the Save Our Bacon Act becomes part of the final Farm Bill, it will take away states’ ability to legislate in key areas and erase hundreds of existing laws. A legislative analysis from Harvard Law School found the bill’s impact goes well beyond the two ballot measures it was written to overturn. For example, it could:

• “Affect hundreds of state and local laws and regulations related to livestock production and livestock products that are intended to protect public health, farmers, and consumers, such as vaccination and food safety requirements.”
• “Nullify animal disease and pest prevention measures, such as state protections related to avian influenza and screwworm.”

In Minnesota, Food & Water Watch recently traced multiple food safety laws this bill could wipe out, including a rule requiring that chickens, chicks, and eggs entering Minnesota be free of salmonella. Minnesota logged its highest-ever number of salmonellosis cases in 2024 — two of these bacterial infections were fatal.

If you have been following the news this summer, there have been unsafe foods impacting people’s health around Minnesota — with products ranging from alfalfa sprouts to jalapeños. The last thing we need is to make it easier for food we eat to be unprotected and untested. Some would like to see more science applied to food testing, not less.

Yet the Save Our Bacon Act would take away our state’s ability to set standards for potentially unsafe food products that could make disease outbreaks even worse. As bird flu and other livestock diseases and pests increase, exacerbated by climate change, it would strip states of the tools they need to keep those diseases at bay.

Impact on Family Farms

At a Minnesota political convention earlier this year, I spent a day walking the exhibit hall alongside a woman who runs a small family farm and who was talking to delegates about the Save Our Bacon Act. She was there because she did the expensive work of retooling her farm to comply with voter-enacted state laws to give mother pigs enough space to move around. That retooling included new housing, new equipment, and new practices — worthwhile in a market that requires safety and humane treatment.

The Save Our Bacon Act, she says, would wipe out her investment and reward the biggest industrial operations, which have not spent any money to comply with voter-enacted laws.

Status of the Bill

The U.S. House version of the Farm Bill contains the Save Our Bacon Act. The Senate Agriculture Committee’s draft leaves it out; that committee failed to advance its bill before the August recess, with another vote expected in September. So the fight isn’t over yet.

Minnesota plays a key role in what happens next. Senator Amy Klobuchar is the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee, and Senator Tina Smith sits on that same committee. In the House, Representative Angie Craig is the top-ranking Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee. All three have signaled that they oppose the Save Our Bacon Act. But tremendous pressure will be placed on them, and on other key players, to accept a compromise that lets a version of this bill pass.

Action = Change

I’ve been working with people at my congregation and in other organizations across Minnesota to let our members of Congress know we have their backs and they should stand firm to keep any version of Save Our Bacon out of the Farm Bill.

You can join us with a simple call to Senators Klobuchar (202-224-3244) and Smith (202-224-5641) and Representative Craig (202-225-2271) in the coming weeks, asking them to oppose any version of the Save Our Bacon Act — including compromise language. Please stand with animals, family farmers, and states’ rights, and make a call today.

---

Theresa Zingery, Golden Valley, has worked professionally in animal welfare advocacy and currently serves on the boards of several animal advocacy organizations.

 

Support our platform for commentaries