What's the deal with Measure J?

Supporters and opponents of the measure are gearing up for a fight that will determine the future of agriculture in Sonoma County (and maybe the world)

On the countywide ballot this November is Measure J: an ordinance which, if passed, would be a major step forward for the international animal rights movement and the biggest blow ever to the county’s animal agriculture industry.

It is not an exaggeration to say this.

It would force a dozen or more major dairy, meat and egg operations to either forfeit millions of both animals and dollars in revenue or shut down entirely. The measure would also be the first of its kind in the entire nation to cut so drastically the population of livestock in a rural area.

This has both farmers and activists around the county and the state engaged in a conflict that will only get hotter as the election draws closer. Consider this a preview.

What’s really in Measure J?

Measure J, which has garnered more than the 19,746 signatures needed to reach the ballot, would make illegal all large and medium-sized Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs).

Measure J uses the Environmental Protection Agency’s definition of a CAFO, which is based on the fact that animals are confined for at least 45 days over a 12-month period. Considering winter storms and high summer temperatures, many substantial livestock businesses—even smaller operations—in the county fit this criteria.

A large CAFO is determined only by size. Some large CAFOs barely meet the threshold, while others have hundreds of thousands of chickens.

A farm is considered a medium CAFO if it is within a certain size and also “has a man-made ditch or pipe that carries manure or wastewater to surface water,” has animals coming “into contact with surface water that passes through the area where they’re confined” or is deemed by the permitting authority to be a “significant contributor of pollutants.”

Basically, the permitting authority could change their mind on whether someone’s farm qualifies as a medium CAFO. Anyone who violates the new ordinance would be subject to fines, and the permitting authority could hypothetically decide to shut down a facility at their discretion.

According to the 2022 Sonoma County Crop Report from the Economic Development Board, the county’s animal agriculture industry has a current annual production value of $180,119,777.

According to an economic impact analysis released in May, conducted by California State University, Measure J would greatly impact the county’s 11 large CAFOs and could impact some of the 49 farms that may be designated as medium-sized CAFOs. Sixteen of these are in the 5th district.

That report references losses in the county’s entire economy to the tune of $259 million a year and the elimination of up to 1,381 jobs. (Since it is unknown how many medium CAFOs there may be determined to be, these numbers should be taken with a large grain of salt.)

The report concluded that “for every job lost from the livestock and poultry production sector, we can expect to lose one additional job from the Sonoma County economy.”

Measure J would be enacted immediately upon being approved by the voters, and there would be a three-year “phase-out” period to allow the farms to either come into compliance or terminate their operations. The county would also have to “provide a retraining and employment assistance program for current and former CAFO workers” so that they can work at non-CAFOs or in another industry. This would be an entirely new set of expenditures.

For obvious reasons, large CAFOs in the county, along with businesses that depend on them, are vehemently against this measure. But so are all five of the county’s supervisors, The Press Democrat editorial board, and many other political organizations and businesses who claim the measure has the potential to ruin an entire industry, since too many of its details are up to interpretation.

While the proponents of the measure, the Coalition to End Factory Farming, has stated they do not expect any medium CAFOs to be affected, many animal farmers wonder what the end game is here. After all, the group most responsible for getting Measure J on the ballot wants to eliminate animal farming altogether.

Direct Action Everywhere

While the main proponent of Measure J, known as the Coalition to End Factory Farming, involves environmental organizations and farms that do not have the same beliefs or objectives as Direct Action Everywhere (DxE), it is hard to imagine this measure could’ve reached the ballot without DxE’s help.

Sonoma County has for the past decade been a central target of DxE, a Berkeley-based organization which seeks to expose what they call “factory farming” and, ultimately, to liberate every animal in the world from human consumption.

DxE has broken into the county’s biggest private farms to perform “rescues,” in which a group of “investigators” photograph and record from inside a facility before taking some of the “abused” animals out to receive medical care. When DxE submits these instances of animal cruelty to county officials, they themselves have been the ones to face legal action.

DxE’s co-founder, Wayne Hsuing, served 38 days in jail for his role in rescues of chickens and ducks from Sunrise Farms and Reichardt Duck Farm. DxE’s most famous activist, Zoe Rosenberg, who once chained herself to the basket during a NBA playoff game and rushed the field during the college football national championship, has been ordered by a judge to wear an ankle monitor to ensure she does not come near the county’s animal farms.

DxE shares the videos and photos they gather during rescues across social media to their thousands of followers, garnering support from around the country and the world. Here are a couple of representative YouTube videos they posted last year:

DxE supports what is called the Animal Bill of Rights, or Rose’s Law, which is named after a chicken rescued from Petaluma Poultry.

Rose’s Law states that all animals have “the right to be free—not owned—or to have a guardian acting in their best interest; the right to not be exploited, abused, or killed by humans; the right to have their interests represented in court and protected by the law; the right to a protected home, habitat, or ecosystem; and the right to be rescued from situations of distress and exploitation.”

The two sides

Both DxE’s local “rescues” along with their explicitly stated values make it hard for some farmers and non-vegans to believe Measure J is really about anything other than freeing animals from the dominion of humans, which would of course mean the destruction of animal farmers’ livelihoods.

Still, DxE’s Director of Communications Cassie King believes that people should be able to hold the conversation with two truths at once: that some farming is good, and some farming, like that of Petaluma Poultry, which is a part of the ubiquitous Perdue chicken brand, is bad. Measure J, she says, is simply about deciding what sort of farming is acceptable.

“I've heard from people on the opposition that they would be supportive of shutting down Perdue, but they think that Measure J is going too far,” she said. “Well, what's wrong with Perdue? What’s wrong with over 125,000 chickens? You know, what do animals really deserve? What parts are you uncomfortable with? You know, because there actually is a really wide spectrum. It’s not just like, ‘We love farming of any kind,’ or, ‘We hate farming,’ because, you know, we all rely on farming. Even if you only eat plants, you rely on farming. I think the opposition is trying to kind of portray this dichotomy of, like, all or nothing. And that’s not really the truth. People have a diverse set of opinions and values and ideas about what is right in this industry.”

Brian Sobel, a communications consultant for the “No on Measure J” campaign, claims that what proponents of Measure J document as evidence of abuse is nothing more than what inevitably happens when animals are made into food—which is that they sometimes get confined, they sometimes get sick and they sometimes die.

“There is no attempt by them to frame the farmer as somebody who actually cares,” said Sobel. “And so what they do to make their case is they find an animal that has perished. Well, if you've got 100,000 chickens as an example, there is a beginning of a life and an end of a life, just like there is with humans. Animals don’t live forever. And so they have gotten in there and taken pictures of animals that have passed and they lead with that as a representation of what the industry is, and what’s going on in the industry. But that isn’t how it works. Farmers in Sonoma County wouldn’t be spending 365 days a year with their animals, if they, at the core, didn’t love their animals. So this idea that the end result is the same for all these animals—that they’re mistreated and malnourished—all of that is just false.”

While neither of the communications people for or against the Measure J campaign got testy about their opponents, the same cannot be said for Samantha Faye, a Sebastopol blueberry farmer who is the creator of the petition for Measure J.

Faye is frustrated, as she believes the Sonoma County Farm Bureau is using its influence to manipulate farmers around the county to oppose the measure. Many farmers already have to rely on other farmers for services, she says, so of course they are going to stick together.

“Large CAFOs are hiding behind the reputation that small farmers have built for this county,” she said. “I think that the [Sonoma County] Farm Bureau has a lot to do with people’s decision to line up behind large CAFOs. I know that the Farm Bureau has gotten in contact with the small farmers that do actually support our measure, and they have had words with them. They use a lot of intimidation tactics. I also don’t think some of the farmers against Measure J really know what they’re talking about, which is very unfortunate, because they’re the business owner, and they really should. There is also a lot of industry pressure for these farmers. They think that if they side with the environment—if they side with the animals which they purport to care for—then they’re going to face a lot of social backlash, especially from an organization that’s as powerful and, honestly, as backhanded as the Farm Bureau.”

Furthermore, Faye believes that many consumers have been manipulated by deceptive marketing to believe that many of the eggs, dairy and meat that they buy from local sources are from a “sustainable” or “humane” source, even when it comes from “factory farms.”

“They have the desire to maintain the illusion that these places are, you know, doing exactly what they say they’re doing for the animals,” she said. “But if they were actually doing that, they wouldn’t be fighting this measure so deeply hard. If they really wanted to continue to sell their product to a market of people that cares where their product came from, they should be excited to jump on to all of these new measures and propositions that are explicitly communicating to the farmers that we have a higher standard now.”

This is something you can expect over the next few months—the proponents and opponents of Measure J calling the other side “disingenuous.”

Here’s 5th District Supervisor Lynda Hopkins, who is a farmer herself, defending the coalition that has come together to oppose the measure.

“These people are barking up the wrong tree,” Hopkins said. “I am seeing a wave of opposition to the measure, with people who don’t usually agree coming together. What proponents of the measure think is a conspiracy theory is really just united opposition to a poorly written and misleading measure.”

Another dispute among proponents and opponents to the measure is whether this will ultimately hurt or help the animal agriculture industry as a whole.

While Faye claims that small farmers will get more access to a market currently dominated by the biggest players, Hopkins believes that the passing of Measure J would not only jeopardize a major local industry, but ruin some of the things residents love about Sonoma County.

“There are lots of examples of possible bycatch, so to speak, from the passing of this measure,” Hopkins said. “I appreciate the opportunity to purchase local butter and local eggs from local sources. All of that could go away.”

What about the environment?

One final point that proponents and opponents of the measure disagree on is the efficacy of current environmental regulations.

While Sonoma County and California in general have some of the strictest environmental regulations anywhere in the world, studies have shown that animal-based agriculture, no matter how sustainable, is a major contributor of greenhouse gas emissions. Moreover, Faye, the creator of the petition for Measure J, does not believe the current regulations go far enough.

“I think there is a real manipulation of the public’s intelligence,” said Faye. “I think that just by saying, ‘The factory farms are worse somewhere else, therefore we shouldn’t take care of the factory farms here,’ is ridiculous. I don't know of any other social or environmental cause that would say, ‘Oh, we need to start somewhere else before we start here.’ That’s a ridiculous premise for creating social change and for creating environmental change. It’s just passing the buck, and frankly, I think it’s pathetic.”

Doug Beretta, the president of the Sonoma County Farm Bureau Board, is the owner of Beretta Dairy on Llano Road just outside of Sebastopol. His farm houses around 300 cattle at a time (100 cows over the medium CAFO threshold) and offers 400 acres for them to graze on. He claims that aside from whatever problems may exist on local farms, of which he claims there are few, Measure J isn’t offering any solutions.

“There’s nothing in the measure that tells us how it will better animal agriculture or water quality,” he said.

Like Beretta, Dayna Ghiradelli, the director of the Sonoma County Farm Bureau, believes that Measure J’s focus on the size of the CAFO is misdirected.

“Ultimately, this measure has everything to do with restricting a person’s ability to produce food at whatever scale they deem appropriate for their farm and their business,” Ghiradelli said. “Regardless of size, [the county’s farms] are not doing anything that’s illegal, and that’s why there hasn’t been any prosecutions. At the end of the day, Sonoma County agriculture is viable and sustainable. We do a dang good job of producing food in a very quality way.”

Beretta Dairy is smaller than many others around the county and is unlikely to be immediately affected if Measure J passes. Still, Beretta says that their most pertinent waste management procedures are the same as what you would see at a bigger facility.

When DxE investigators showed up on the Beretta’s property in March with phones in hand, capturing video, he encouraged them, if they were truly worried about the conditions of the animals or the environment, to tour their facility.

“Now, more than ever, we have to be willing to open up,” Berreta said.

Farmers like Beretta say that after November, whether or not the measure passes, it’s important for farmers to continue to share their stories. Others will keep asking questions.

“We're seeing an increased understanding of how humans are connected to other animals,” said DxE’s Communications Director Cassie King. “World health is connected, as is our habitat. I think that we're experiencing a lot of really scary things in our political climate, and while that makes some people afraid of change, it makes other people more open to considering rewriting the laws of our society and figuring out how we can actually protect everyone. I think that we're absolutely at the cusp of major change in a lot of ways, and that makes me feel hopeful.”

Cows at Beretta Dairy. (Photos by Ezra Wallach)