Lindsay and I were shopping at Kroger last night, and I waltzed past the refrigerated section and browsed the egg selection. Along with the organic eggs, I found these from Eggland’s Best: Cage-free eggs. Note the price tag on these gems. Wow; seems a little stiff to me… Hmmm… I wonder what good old-fashioned eggs cost these days…

Fortunately I didn’t have to look far, because right next to the uber-pricey eggs were these fabulous Grade A eggs I’ve eaten all my life. Wow! Quite a difference in price… $3.19 versus $.89? Wonder what the cost difference could possibly be…

Here’s the bottom line (literally): if out of state vegan activists are allowed to impose their radical agenda of animal rights and non-scientific regulations on Ohio farmers, this is what eggs will cost at the grocery store. I don’t know about you, but it seems like budgets are a lot tighter across our state than most of us would like, and paying nearly four times as much for eggs wouldn’t seem to help families trying to stretch their dollar in this economy.

Ohio egg farmers raise chickens in a way that meets all of their needs for food, comfort, safety from predators, and protection from disease. The opponents of modern farm practices and farm families want to force egg farmers to abandon the scientific housing systems that provide for all these animal needs in favor of production methods used during the Great Depression. These “open” housing systems allow the birds to peck and even cannibalize one another, increase incidences of disease, and fail to provide the animal with the minimum standard of food and water each individual bird requires. Because of these shortcomings, the “cage-free” systems are far less productive, meaning the chicken, because its needs aren’t adequately met, lays fewer eggs. With fewer eggs, the processor and retailer are forced to charge more for eggs to meet their financial needs. And, obviously, the farmer makes less money because it costs more to produce fewer eggs than in the modern system, meaning more farmers will either go out of business, or will move their family businesses to other states that don’t adopt such senseless animal rights agendas.

Obviously, Ohio farmers care not only about your family’s well-being, but for the welfare of their animals, the quality of the environment we share, and the economic health of our communities. Support Ohio farmers and the food they provide by voting Yes on Issue 2 this November.