A dispute over a ballot question that would mandate all eggs sold in Massachusetts be from hens that are cage-free is headed to the state’s highest court, a sign of the increasing intensity in a battle between agricultural interests and animal welfare advocates. The Supreme Judicial Court on June 8 will hear arguments in a lawsuit backed by a group allied with the agriculture industry. Protect the Harvest is disputing Attorney General Maura Healey’s approval of the referendum language, arguing it doesn’t follow the state Constitution’s requirements for initiative petitions.And the nonprofit group, which says it advocates for affordable food, is raising the specter of a full-fledged political battle against the ballot question, should the lawsuit fall short. The proposed ballot item and resulting law, backed by the Humane Society of the United States, would require that, starting in 2022, Massachusetts farms and businesses produce and sell only eggs from cage-free hens; pork from pigs not raised in or born of a sow raised in a small crate; and veal from calves not raised in very tight enclosures.
The plaintiffs in the opponents’ lawsuit are a mother on food stamps with five children in Medford who’s worried about skyrocketing food costs and a farmer from the rural town of Wendell who is concerned about government and “sentimentalists” interfering in the raising of livestock.