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THE SAVE OUR BACON ACT WON’T SAVE AMERICAN FARMS  
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Anna Pesek
August 5, 2026
Barn Raiser
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_ The bill supports multinational corporations and not independent
farmers like me. _

These Berkshire pigs are taken care of by Anna Pesek, who runs Over
the Moon Farm in Coggon, Iowa. Independent farmers like her across the
country are speaking out against the Save Our Bacon Act., (Courtesy of
Anna Pesek)

 

Iowa is known for its agricultural production, often proudly boasting
that it is home to more pigs than people. As a young and beginning
independent Iowa farmer trying to make a living raising pigs and
poultry on pasture, I am acutely aware of the scale and impact of
Iowa’s corporate agriculture industry.

Policies that further entrench industrial agriculture matter so much
to farmers like me. So it’s disappointing to see Rep. Ashley Hinson
(R-Iowa-02) once again championing the Save Our Bacon Act, legislation
she introduced in 2025. While the bill was successfully included in
the version of the farm bill passed by the U.S. House on April 30, it
was not included in the Senate’s draft of the bill, whose latest
version was recently released
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ahead of the Senate Agriculture Committee’s markup on August 6. With
another markup planned in September, the fight is far from over.

On July 10
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Hinson stood on a farm outside Marshalltown, Iowa, urging Senators to
include the legislation in its version of the farm bill, arguing it
protects small Iowa farmers. It may protect the status quo, but it
doesn’t protect the kind of localized regional food systems many of
us are fighting to rebuild—the same ones many Iowans believe are
essential to address our growing water quality and cancer crisis. Sen.
Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) is rumored to follow Hinson’s lead by adding the
Save Our Bacon Act to the farm bill as an amendment in the committee
markup process.

The Save Our Bacon Act would block states and localities from setting
standards for the sale of livestock products produced in other states.
It would nullify laws like California’s Proposition 12, which set
new standards banning the sale of meat, eggs and poultry bred in
tightly confined spaces, with its consequences extending to food
safety standards and consumer protection laws.

Hinson and the bill’s supporters have repeatedly claimed that the
bill will help save family farmers from costs associated with
transitioning their practices to meet minimum space standards for
raising livestock, fearing those costs could put them out of business.
And while it’s true that this conversion comes with an initial
upfront investment, farmers around the country
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production benefits afterward, as they receive a price premium that
makes their business viable and access to a market not dominated by
corporate control. About 27% of producers
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are already Prop. 12 compliant and have invested hundreds of millions
of dollars through renovations and construction. Should the law be
rolled back, 90% of those investments would be “stranded”
according to a new economic analysis
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commissioned by the American Meat Producers Association, threatening
many operations.

It’s clear the biggest winners from the Save Our Bacon Act won’t
be independent Iowa farmers. They’ll be multinational corporations
and large integrators that already dominate the country’s pork
industry.

Independent farmers like me exist in a parallel supply chain to the
industrial system. In the corporate system, a company owns the pigs,
feed and medicine, while the farmer becomes a contract grower who is
paid a set price to provide the buildings, utilities, investment
capital, and the labor to raise the pigs. Under this contract, the
company (called “integrator
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often set up as an LLC to obscure their ownership
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and relationship to multinational meatpacking conglomerates) dictates
how to raise the pigs, and when and where to sell them for slaughter.
The company usually organizes the farm into a concentrated animal
feeding operation (CAFO
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housing thousands of hogs, only to ship out the profits and leave
farmers and rural communities with the risks.

By contrast, my own business, Over the Moon Farm, owns the hogs and
control over the entirety of the process from birth through slaughter.
Ultimately, we take responsibility for feeding our community in
Eastern Iowa. When independent farmers like me exist, the dollars we
spend circulate locally. For us, that means buying feed from a small
independent feed mill in a neighboring town that delivers our freshly
ground hog feed every week. That feed mill employs local people. They
bank locally and they maintain one of the few remaining storefronts in
their community.

Anna Pesek is pictured with her Berkshire pigs. _(Courtesy of Anna
Pesek)_

Our massively consolidated hog system makes it systematically harder
to raise 100 pigs than 4,000. The National Pork Producers Council
(NPPC) admits [[link removed]] that, over the
past two decades, the number of hog farms has decreased by roughly 50%
while hog production has increased by 20 million. The contract growing
system is a major factor. I watch every day as this consolidation
hollows out our rural communities, large pork integrators keep getting
bigger, and independent agricultural markets and supply chain
infrastructure disappear. Our pig population may keep growing, but
independent farmers like me have become few and far between,
struggling to survive in a state and country that caters to industrial
scale systems.

Unfortunately, Hinson relies more on the idea of the struggling family
farmer than the reality of pork production in Iowa. Most pigs are
raised under contract for huge, multi-billion-dollar companies that
could cover their farmers’ costs to transition to more humane
systems and simply choose not to. Hinson’s support of the Save Our
Bacon Act directly enables these companies to continue stacking all of
the risks and costs of production onto Iowa farmers while they rake in
the profits, further concentrating their power and hurting all Iowans
in the process.

Iowa voters are catching on. On July 20, Farm Action Fund, a
nonpartisan, farmer-led organization, found in a poll that 45% of
Iowans oppose the Save Our Bacon Act
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while 23% support it. According to the poll, opposition spanned every
congressional district, age group, party affiliation and gender. It
also found Hinson’s support for the bill could create a political
liability, with Hinson having received campaign contributions from
Smithfield, a Chinese-owned multinational meatpacking conglomerate.
Politicians like her should pay attention.

Over the past seven years since starting Over the Moon Farm, I’ve
worked to create a transformative business that moves Iowa toward a
food and farming system that feeds our communities, values the dignity
of people and animals, and supports the economic revitalization our
rural and urban communities need. Every new relationship with a
butcher, grocery store, or family buying directly from the farm
strengthens our local economy, and gives young farmers like myself a
reason to stay on or return to the farm.

Over the Moon is one of thousands of independent, pasture-based
livestock farms around the country doing this work in the face of
extreme corporate consolidation. Yet, despite the value we provide to
our immediate communities, we are often overlooked by politicians like
Hinson and the industrial trade associations, like the NPPC, that
donate to their campaigns.

It is because of this neglect that we are proud to be founding members
of the FACE (Farmers for Animals, Communities, and the Environment) Ag
Network—the first national network designed to give pasture-based
livestock farmers the tools, platform, and collective power necessary
to combat the industrial dominance of our livestock systems, and
achieve meaningful progress towards a more humane, resilient, and
regional food future.

Young and beginning farmers like me aren’t lacking skills or
innovations, nor are we lacking demand for our products. We are
lacking access to markets that give us opportunities. We need policies
that restore competition, recognize the will of voters, get more local
food into our communities, strengthen independent farms, and give the
next generation a real chance to succeed.

 

_Anna Pesek is the co-owner of Over the Moon Farm in Delaware County,
Iowa. She raises farrow-to-finish hogs and pastured poultry which she
sells directly to consumers across Iowa and the lower 48 states.
She’s been involved in food systems advocacy for the past decade
including with organizations like the Alliance for Fair Food, the
National Family Farm Coalition, Farm Aid and more. Presently, Anna is
a farmer-leader of the FACE Ag Network (Farmers for Animals
Communities and the Environment), the first national network of
pasture-based livestock farmers fighting for common sense policy
solutions._

 

_Barn Raiser connects local and national perspectives through a
network of writers and contributors who live in and care about rural
and small town communities. By giving voice to shared concerns, and by
reporting on local organizing strategies, Barn Raiser will leaven the
commons with local connections._

* Farm Bill
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* Family Farms
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* agribusiness
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* hogs
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