Measure J Economic Impact Guide
Introduction
There have been a lot of misconceptions around Measure J and the impact it would have on Sonoma County’s economy. To help inform voters and clarify the impact on the local economy and food supply, we’ve compiled this Measure J economic impact guide. We’ve sourced from peer-reviewed literature and talked to local economists to create this guide.
Measure J provides an opportunity to reinvigorate smaller and more diverse farms in Sonoma County. Small and medium farms bring safer and higher-paying jobs and contribute to the local economy more than most CAFOs do. A transition away from factory farming benefits all of us, including smaller farms.
How many facilities in Sonoma County will be impacted by Measure J?
There are an estimated 21 Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) in Sonoma County. These are the largest and most destructive animal farms in Sonoma County. Measure J would require these 21 facilities to either downsize to below the threshold for a large CAFO or close within 3 years. These 21 facilities together confine around 3 million animals. Many of these facilities, such as Sunrise Bodega Ranch and Deer Valley Dairy, also known as Tresch Dairy, are only slightly over the CAFO limit and we expect they could downsize quite easily over the 3-year period if they choose to do so.
References:
What is the economic impact of Measure J?
Measure J could benefit the economy significantly. Short-term economic costs caused by the 21 CAFOs downsizing or closing would be low.
While CAFOs in Sonoma County do generate more product than smaller farms, sales and use tax is not collected by the county from most CAFO transactions because of the tax exemptions granted to animal livestock producers by the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration (CDTFA) and because sales and use tax is not collected for most grocery sales in California.
Purchases and retail of live and processed animals are tax exempt when intended for human consumption. Many supplies such as feed and farm equipment are also fully or partially tax exempt for all animal livestock producers meaning that sales tax is not collected when CAFOs purchase animal feed.
Property values may increase in neighborhoods surrounding CAFOs, which would result in an increase in property tax collected by the county. The likely increase of property values is supported by decades of research that show houses within close proximity to CAFOs show a decrease value of up to 26%. This is primarily due to odors and pollution that negatively impact the neighboring community.
References:
https://www.greenfieldadvisors.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/animaloperationsJKwinter2015.pdf
https://www.cdtfa.ca.gov/formspubs/pub66.pdf
How much will it cost the county if Measure J passes?
The county’s own impact analyses reveal that a very tiny fraction of a percent of the county’s yearly budget would be spent as a result of Measure J passing. They estimate approximately 3.1 million dollars during the initial three-year phase out period for worker retraining services and enforcement programs, which is approximately 0.124% percent of the county’s 2.5 billion dollar budget that the Board of Supervisors adopted for 2024-2025 fiscal year.
There's also a cost to taxpayers for not eliminating CAFOs. Local and federal taxpayers fund water cleanup programs, road infrastructure maintenance, CAFO subsidies, and avian flu bailout programs.
Measure J requires that the county fund a worker retraining program to aid any workers who experience job loss from CAFOs downsizing or shutting down. The county’s Human Services Department estimates that these services would cost 1.5 million dollars, over a three-year period. This is 0.0598% of the fiscal year budget. The Agricultural Commissioner also predicts around five additional jobs would be created to help manage the retraining of CAFO workers.
The Agriculture Commissioner also estimates around 1.6 dollars million per year throughout the three-year phase out period for inspections and documentation that are required for overseeing the phase out. The ballot ordinance requires that the county develop a public-facing database of CAFOs in the county, which currently does not exist. The Department of Agriculture/Weights and Measures estimates that this will cost $50,000 to develop and $20,000/year to maintain – approximately 0.0008% of the fiscal year budget.
The No on J campaign will often cite an irrelevant report from University of California Cooperative Extension, Sonoma County (UCCE) and the Chico Agribusiness Institute which estimates a cost of $259,049,852. This report does not measure the impact of Measure J. The report cites that it is “difficult to identify what portion of these livestock and poultry operations would be directly impacted by the proposed ordinance,” and states “this study examines the economic impacts associated with a loss of all livestock and poultry production in Sonoma County.”
References:
UCCE Report
https://sonomacounty.ca.gov/board-of-supervisors-adopts-fiscal-year-2024-25-budget
How would Measure J impact the employees of CAFOs?
If Measure J passes, there will be a small amount of job loss among workers at existing CAFOs. Longterm, eliminating CAFOs could allow for the potential for employment gain since smaller farms, which provide more job opportunities per dollar and per production unit than CAFOs, will no longer be outcompeted. CAFOs rely on the model of industrialization, which standardizes, specializes, and consolidates work, resulting in fewer workers required to operate CAFOs.
We care about our residents and don’t want any of them to experience job loss, which is why the ordinance requires that the county provide these workers a retraining program to aid them in finding employment in other sectors. While it is hard to get exact employment numbers from facilities for multiple reasons, including lack of transparency in the industry as a whole and the potential for large numbers of employees without documentation, the County’s Economic Development Board estimates 454 employees would be impacted. This is a signifant overestimate because it assumes that all existing CAFOs shut down rather than downsize, and because their report includes medium-sized facilities which are not designated as CAFOs in the county.
CAFO work is dangerous work that no one should be subjected to. CAFO workers are at increased risk of respiratory disease and decreased lung function, machinery accidents, and mental health conditions. Eliminating CAFOs provides the opportunity to reintroduce smaller and more diverse animal farms into the county, which in turn will bring more and safer job opportunities for local residents, including the most vulnerable.
References:
https://sonoma-county.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=12929414&GUID=41A09836-8D20-4500-989A-27F1BFDEBA95
https://www.cabidigitallibrary.org/doi/pdf/10.5555/20073020230
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37191901/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18524283/
How would Measure J impact small farms?
Measure J would level the playing field for small and medium farms, which are currently being outcompeted by CAFOs. Measure J is a unique opportunity for Sonoma County to enable and support the smaller farms that are core to the county’s identity.
CAFOs hold market power and outcompete small farms. CAFOs are heavily subsidized which gives them an unfair advantage and allows them to create a cheaper product than small and medium sized farms. Small farms typically do not receive the same amount of federal subsidies as CAFOs; in 2017 only 23% of farms with yearly revenues of less than $100,000 received federal subsidies, while 69% of farms above that income threshold did. With the aid of government subsidies, CAFOs are able to reduce operating expenses and squeeze independent producers out of business.
While some CAFOs in Sonoma County do purchase feed locally, some do not. CAFOs operated by Perdue’s Petaluma Poultry use a vertical integration model in which the CAFO contractor provides hatcheries, feed, and veterinary care. If Measure J passes, the hundreds of small and medium farms in Sonoma County will diversify the business of these services and contribute to the local economy in a much healthier way.
Small farms in Sonoma County are currently not protected. In the 1940s, over 4,000 independent egg farms operated in the county; by 2015, only 157 remained, with two companies (Sunrise Farms and Petaluma Egg Farms) dominating the market. In 2017, 125 dairy farms existed in the county and in only 5 years that number was more than halved to 54. Measure J will protect small farms from continuing to get forced out by CAFOs.
References:
https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/2019-10/cafos-uncovered-full-report.pdf
https://www.cato.org/briefing-paper/cutting-federal-farm-subsidies#reasons-repeal-farm-subsidies
How would Measure J impact the price of locally produced dairy, poultry, and eggs?
Measure J would likely have little impact on the price of locally produced food, and residents should not be paying “locally produced” prices for factory farmed products.
Only 3% of all animal farms in the county meet the requirements to be designated as CAFOs, and many CAFOs in Sonoma County are only barely over the animal size threshold and could downsize a small amount and continue operating. Measure J is about a transition away from factory farming. CAFOs can downsize to be more sustainable operations and small and medium farms increase and expand to help fill the gaps.
CAFO catastrophes have historically been shown to lead to an increase in food prices. Most notably we have seen a scarcity and profound price increase in commercial eggs when national outbreaks of avian flu occurred in 2022 and 2023. With avian flu now being detected in dairy farms across the US, including in California, it may be only a matter of time before we see similar price increases to dairy products as well.
How would Measure J impact the amount of locally produced dairy, poultry, and eggs?
All Sonoma County CAFOs supply to large commercial suppliers such as Costco, Safeway, Whole Foods, and Trader Joes. Most export and distribute their products across the country. This results in a very small amount of CAFO product staying in the county for local consumption. So if the CAFOs in Sonoma County downsize under Measure J, they should be able to maintain the same production of food for local shelves and simply reduce the amount of product they are shipping out of the county, which would also reduce their greenhouse gas emissions from transportation.
There is also no evidence supporting that CAFOs solve food scarcity at a local or non-local level. CAFOs, in general, have not solved food scarcity in the US. This can be exemplified by EPA data which shows the number of food insecure households continues to rise, as does the number and expansion of CAFOs in the US. There’s no relationship between the expansion of CAFOs and greater availability or affordability of food.
https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2019-09/documents/cafo_tracksum_endyear_2018.pdf
Photo by Ashe Walker on Unsplash