By Sean Goldman-Hunt<\/p>\n
View pdf here<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong>Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n In recent years, the destructive impact of the global food system on the environment has come into sharp focus, with activists and scholars calling for significant reform.1<\/a><\/sup>See, e.g.,<\/em> Michael Pollan, The Food Movement, Rising<\/em>, N.Y Rev. Books (May 20, 2010) (describing the emergence in recent years of a movement devoted to remaking the food system).<\/span><\/a> The harms range from local environmental degradation to the effects of climate change linked to the food system’s GHG releases.2<\/a><\/sup>Sustainable Agriculture<\/em>, Nat. Geo., https:\/\/www.worldwildlife.org\/industries\/sustainable-agric agriculture#:~:text=Agriculture%20is%20the%20leading%20source,in%20the%20environment%20for%20generations (last visited Nov. 16, 2022).<\/span> These effects are felt acutely in the U.S. and especially in California, the nation’s leading food producer and a state uniquely sensitive to climate change.3<\/a><\/sup>Atty. Gen. of Cal., Climate Change Impacts in California<\/em>, https:\/\/oag.ca.gov\/environment\/impact (last visited Feb. 23, 2024).<\/span> Despite this, the American and Californian agriculture sectors remain largely unregulated.<\/p>\n This article proposes that California\u2019s legislature enact a statute that would prohibit the sale in the state of any food item whose lifetime environmental impact exceeds certain limits.\u00a0 This life cycle approach prevents any phase of production from escaping regulatory scrutiny and allows producers some flexibility in deciding where along that production line to make needed improvements. The law would likely benefit not only Californians but, as argued below, much of the country. The article also argues, in the alternative, for the adoption of a technology-based standard if the life cycle method proves too burdensome.<\/p>\n The law may face political opposition from California\u2019s agriculture industry, legal challenges, and doubt about its feasibility. But the legal, political,4<\/a><\/sup>An important qualification to this comes in the form of recent massive demonstrations across Europe by farmers protesting climate policies that target agriculture. Christina Lu, Europe\u2019s Farmer Protests Are Part of a Bigger Problem<\/em>, Foreign Policy, https:\/\/foreignpolicy.com\/2024\/02\/20\/europe-farmers-protests-climate-eu-green-deal (Feb. 20, 2024). Among other things, the protests prove the need to incorporate key stakeholders\u2019 perspectives when drafting laws like the one this article suggests.<\/span> and technical viability of similar laws in both California and the EU, explored in detail below, bodes well for the proposal. Implementing this law will help California limit the damage done to the state\u2019s environment by food production and further cement the state as a leader in environmental law.<\/p>\n The Problem: The Environmental Harms of Food in California<\/strong><\/p>\n The global food system significantly contributes to the despoliation of the planet\u2019s ecology, biodiversity, and climate. This is certainly so in the U.S., where farms, along with the production and distribution systems built to service them, cause \u201chabitat loss and degradation, soil erosion and sedimentation, water resources depletion, soil and water salinization, agrochemical releases, animal wastes, nonpoint source water pollution, and air pollution,”5<\/a><\/sup>J.B. Ruhl, Farms, Their Environmental Harms, and Environmental Law, 27 Ecology L.Q. 263, 263 (2000).<\/span> not to mention the massive release of GHGs, accounting for 10.6% of the national total.6<\/a><\/sup>USDA Economic Research Service, Climate Change<\/em>, https:\/\/www.ers.usda.gov\/topics\/natural-resources-environment\/climate-change\/ (Last updated Jun. 10, 2022). The vast majority of the industry\u2019s GHG emissions take the form of \u201cnitrous oxide from cropped and grazed soils, methane from enteric fermentation and rice cultivation, nitrous oxide and methane from managed livestock manure.\u201d Id<\/em>.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n These impacts are especially severe in California, which is battered by a slew of climatic and environmental crises. Climate change is exposing the state\u2019s coast to sea level rise and erosion, driving more severe wildfire seasons, and depleting the Sierra Nevada snowpack, the state\u2019s major water source.7<\/a><\/sup>Atty. Gen. of Cal., Climate Change Impacts in California<\/em>, https:\/\/oag.ca.gov\/environment\/impact (last visited Feb. 23, 2024).<\/span> Perhaps most perversely, climate disruptions, driven in part by GHG-intensive agriculture, are damaging that very agriculture <\/em>by triggering extended droughts, saltwater contamination, and increasing the prevalence of pests.8<\/a><\/sup>Id<\/em>.<\/span> Additionally, as the nation\u2019s leading agricultural region, California\u2019s environment is exposed to many of the more localized harms caused by food systems. The depletion of the state\u2019s groundwater supply is primarily driven by the use of aquifer waters on irrigated farms;9<\/a><\/sup>Dan Charles, New protections for California’s aquifers are reshaping the state’s Central Valley<\/em>, NPR, https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2021\/10\/07\/1037369959\/new-protections-for-californias-aquifers-are-reshaping-the-states-central-valley (Oct. 7, 2021); Scott Wilson, As it enters a third year, California\u2019s drought is strangling the farming industry<\/em>, Washington Post, Mar. 21, 2022. The looming disaster this depletion portends has recently come into starker public focus, with major national newspapers covering the crisis. See, e.g.<\/em>, Soumya Karlamanga, The Dire Consequences of Depleting California\u2019s Groundwater<\/em>, N.Y. Times, Aug. 30, 2023.<\/span> \u201cagriculture is a major source of NOx pollution\u201d, a key component of smog, in the state;10<\/a><\/sup>Almaraz et al., Agriculture is a major source of NOx pollution in California<\/em>, Science Advances, Vol. 4, No. 1.<\/span> and pesticide use has historically threatened California species and habitats.11<\/a><\/sup>See<\/em> Ctr. for Biological Diversity, California Court Ruling Ends Decades of State Pesticide Spraying<\/em>, Feb. 26, 2018.<\/span> <\/a><\/a><\/p>\n Despite these harms, \u201c[f]arms are one of the last uncharted frontiers of environmental regulation in the\u201d U.S.12<\/a><\/sup>Ruhl, 27 Ecology L.Q. at 263.<\/span> This is so not just for farms, but for the entire food system. The production and distribution of food is a complex, multifaceted process, involving \u201craw materials extraction, processing, farming, manufacturing, distribution, [and] retail\u201d sales.13<\/a><\/sup>Cucurachi et. al., Life Cycle Assessment of Food Systems<\/em>, One Earth, Volume 1, Issue 3, 293.<\/span> <\/a><\/sup> This intricate challenge of regulating a food item\u2019s environmental impacts thus makes the sector a prime candidate for regulation through life cycle assessment.<\/p>\n The Proposal: LCA for Food<\/strong><\/p>\n This paper argues that California\u2019s legislature should adopt a statute that limits the life cycle environmental impacts of any food sold in the state. The technical term for the methodology used to measure a product\u2019s environmental impact over the course of its existence is a life cycle assessment (LCA). The law would require that an LCA be performed on all food items sought to be sold in the state and would allow into California markets only those products whose measured impacts meet certain requirements. In particular, this law should cap the amount of greenhouse gases allowed to be released over the course of bringing the food product to market, as well as the soil erosion, water use and pollution, land use and degradation and other environmental harms caused over that period.14<\/a><\/sup>The actual metrics chosen will have to be determined by the legislature and the responsible state agencies. Presumably, a chief consideration in this choice will be the measurability of the metric. By way of example, there are established methods for assessing soil health and the state of land degradation. See, e.g.,<\/em> USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, Soil Health Assessment<\/em>, https:\/\/www.nrcs.usda.gov\/conservation-basics\/natural-resource-concerns\/soils\/soil-health\/soil-health-assessment#:~:text=Soil%20health%20cannot%20be%20measured,processes%2C%20or%20characteristics%20of%20soils (last visited Jan. 23, 2024); von Keyserlingk et. al., Approaches to assess land degradation risk: a synthesis<\/em>, Ecology & Society, Volume 28, Issue 1, Article 53 (synthesizing existing land degradation risk methodologies and advancing an approach that aligns with UN disaster risk reduction strategies). If the proposed law places measurement responsibility with industry, companies will likely comply by retaining relevant experts.<\/span> The following section explores the details of an LCA.<\/p>\n The effect of the law will be to reduce the burden placed on California\u2019s environment by food-related climate change and depletive agricultural practices in the state (and, as is explored below, the benefits of the law will likely radiate beyond California). The law will achieve this by disfavouring high-input, resource-intensive production processes and foods, like livestock and processed food products.15<\/a><\/sup>\u201cLCA studies suggest that animal-based foods have typically higher environmental impacts across a wide spectrum of impact categories as compared with plant-based alternatives\u2026The climate-change and land-use impacts of the protein-equivalent for peas, in turn, are over 100-fold and almost 50-fold lower than those of beef.\u201dCucurachi et. al., supra n. 13, at 294.<\/span> <\/a> Indeed, \u201c[c]limate change, air pollution, biodiversity loss, land use, energy use, water use, and food wastage are the environmental parameters used to measure [ultra-processed foods\u2019 (UPF)] sustainability, they are all interconnected and negatively affected by the [UPF] food system.\u201d16<\/a><\/sup>Garcia et. al., Ultra-processed foods consumption as a promoting factor of greenhouse gas emissions, water, energy, and land use: A longitudinal assessment<\/em>, Science of the Total Environment, Volume 891, Article 164417, at 2.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n What is LCA?<\/em><\/p>\n Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a holistic approach to environmental impact analysis that attempts to measure a product\u2019s or process\u2019s effects on the environment from “cradle to grave.” ISO Standards 14040 and 14044 set out the internationally recognized stages of the LCA,17<\/a><\/sup>Int\u2019l Org. for Standardization [ISO], ISO 14040:2006 & ISO 14044:2006.<\/span> the most important of which are the \u201cLife Cycle Inventory\u201d (LCI) and the \u201cLife Cycle Impact Assessment\u201d (LCIA). LCI \u201cinvolves the data collection and the calculation procedure for the quantification of inputs and outputs of the studied system. Inputs and outputs concern energy, raw material and other physical inputs, products and co-products and waste, emissions to air\/water\/soil, and other environmental aspects.\u201d18<\/a><\/sup>Life Cycle Assessment<\/em>, EUROPEAN COMMISSION, https:\/\/eplca.jrc.ec.europa.eu\/lifecycleassessment.html (last visited Feb. 26, 2024).<\/span> During the LCIA, in turn, \u201cLCI results are associated to environmental impact categories and indicators. This is done through LCIA methods which firstly classify emissions into impact categories and secondly characterize them to common units so as to allow comparison.”19<\/a><\/sup>Id<\/em>.<\/span> LCIA is the key tool for sustainability-minded policymakers, as it enables them to quantify and thus regulate a product or process\u2019s environmental impacts.<\/p>\n Environmental LCA for Food<\/em> &<\/em> Technical Feasibility<\/em><\/p>\n LCA is a highly technical and complex methodology, requiring the selection or creation of uniform environmental impact metrics and the use of those metrics to measure a host of environmental harms.20<\/a><\/sup>Cucurachi et. al., One Earth, Volume 1, Issue 3, Pages 292-297.<\/span><\/a> This process is made all the more complicated in the food context, where many products contain a range of ingredients each subject to their own production process.21<\/a><\/sup>Ultra-processed foods, diet quality, and health using the NOVA classification system<\/em>, FAO at 8, https:\/\/www.fao.org\/3\/ca5644en\/ca5644en.pdf (last visited Feb. 26, 2024).<\/span> Further, thousands of such food products are then made in or imported into California. Finally, unlike the transport fuel industry \u2013 regulated by a law outlined below \u2013 which deals in relatively few fuel products22<\/a><\/sup>Cal. Code Regs. tit. 17, \u00a7 95482 (listing only 12 main fuel types for regulation).<\/span> and is thus easy to place into a framework of reporting requirements for producers and importers, the food industry comprises thousands of economic actors each potentially responsible for measuring and reporting the environmental impact of their products.<\/p>\n Together, the series of relationships in the food industry makes for a process likely difficult to measure and holistically regulate, a key difficulty for an LCA regulatory approach and a fact that arguably favors a tech-based approach. The difficulty of the process will also vary by food category, with more processed, ingredient-intensive foods demanding impact accounting across a vast range of inputs, and locally-grown produce requiring decidedly less.23<\/a><\/sup>Though, of course, the producers in the latter category have significantly less access to the tools required to measure impact than do the large conglomerates that dominate the processed food space. This disparity is one of the important challenges that will have to be addressed by the implementing agency. Some potential solutions are exemptions for small producers, direct aid\/involvement by the relevant agency, and government funding to put towards measuring impacts.<\/span> This may, however, turn out to be a quite salient feature rather than a bug. As the law is designed to minimize the environmental impacts of the food system, this reporting structure will reveal the multilayered harms wrought by factor-intensive foods and impose administrative costs on them in having to perform a complicated LCA, thus further disincentivizing their production.<\/p>\n This web of complexity, though daunting at first glance, can be effectively untangled by placing the reporting requirements at the optimal point in the food chain (so to speak),\u00a0and ensuring that entities at every node of the supply chain, including the transportation vectors between those nodes, are measuring the impacts of their individual activities. That optimal point is a foodstuff\u2019s final distributor: the impact assessments generated by nodes further up the chain would be passed along to the distributor, who would then be responsible for reporting the combined total and ensuring compliance with the restrictions. Alternatively, as was done in the LCFS regulations,24<\/a><\/sup>Cal. Code Regs. Tit. 17, \u00a7 95483 (assigning responsibilities based on transport fuel sector, with the category of responsible entity often differing between those sectors).<\/span><\/a> lawmakers and regulators might tailor reporting responsibilities to each sector within the food industry to account for variations in firm size and sophistication. The same goes for punishing violations: liability could be laid solely on the final link in the chain or distributed according to the tailoring principles just discussed. The ultimate decision should be made by the expert agencies charged with implementing the law. Similarly, filling in the rest of the details \u2013 including, as mentioned in footnote 18, determining what funding and regulatory carve outs might be required \u2013 ought to be left to the relevant administrative agencies.<\/p>\n Why LCA is better than alternatives<\/em><\/p>\n LCA is considered by many in the sustainability field to be the optimal approach for assessing and responding to environmental harms caused by multistep production systems.25<\/a><\/sup>\u201c[LCA] is the method typically recommended by international institutions, such as the European Commission and the United Nations Environment Programme, to support policy making for sustainability by quantitatively assessing the environmental impacts during the entire life cycle of a product.\u201d Cucurachi et. al., One Earth, Volume 1, Issue 3, Pages 292-297, at 292.<\/span> The LCA methodology allows for the \u201cholistic coverage of environmental dimensions and for the identification of hotspots, possible trade-offs, and burden shifting among life cycle stages or impact categories.”26<\/a><\/sup>Sala et al., The evolution of life cycle assessment in European policies over three decades<\/em>, The Int\u2019l J. of Life Cycle Assessment 26, 2295-2314, 2295 (2021).<\/span> It also prevents lifecycle stages from escaping regulatory notice, which often happens when regulators view products and processes in siloes or as distinct environmental problems. What\u2019s more, as alluded to in the quote above, because the law imposes a cap on the entire production life cycle rather than on individual components of it, the law grants producers flexibility in selecting the optimal points in that process to make improvements. This burden shifting may enhance the political salience of this policy to California\u2019s food sector.<\/p>\n Why California?<\/em><\/p>\n California has for decades been a pathbreaker in the environmental space, having inspired copycat federal legislation and pushed the country towards greener practices.27<\/a><\/sup>See generally<\/em>, DAVID VOGEL, CALIFORNIA GREENIN\u2019: HOW THE GOLDEN STATE BECAME AN ENVIRONMENTAL LEADER (2018) (examining California\u2019s leadership and influence in nationwide environmental regulation efforts).<\/span><\/a> What\u2019s more, the state\u2019s welfare is also uniquely tied to the local environment and the global climate.28<\/a><\/sup>See, e.g.<\/em>, Liza Gross, Converging Climate Risks Interact to Cause More Harm, Hitting Disadvantaged Californians Hardest<\/em>, Inside Climate News (Feb. 2, 2024), https:\/\/insideclimatenews.org\/news\/02022024\/extreme-heat-and-wildfire-smoke-hits-disadvantaged-californians-hardest\/. <\/span> It is thus the ideal U.S. jurisdiction for an LCA food law. California is home to 12% of the U.S. population,29<\/a><\/sup>U.S. CENSUS BUREAU, Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for the United States, Regions, States, District of Columbia and Puerto Rico: April 1, 2020 to July 1, 2023<\/em>, Table within State Population Totals and Components of Change: 2020\u20142023<\/em>, https:\/\/www.census.gov\/data\/tables\/time-series\/demo\/popest\/2020s-state-total.html (last visited Feb. 27, 2024). <\/span> and 85% of food consumed in the U.S. is domestically grown.30<\/a><\/sup>FDA, FDA Strategy for the Safety of Imported Food<\/em> (2022).<\/span> Assuming California consumes roughly the same proportion of domestically-grown food as the US as a whole, an LCA food law in California would improve the environmental impact profile of approximately 10% of U.S. agriculture.<\/p>\n But the possible upsides don\u2019t stop there: scholars31<\/a><\/sup>See, e.g.<\/em>, Richard Perkins and Eric Neumayer, Does the \u2018California effect\u2019 operate across borders? trading- and investing-up in automobile emission standards<\/em>, 19 J. Eur. Pub. Pol\u2019y 217 (2012).<\/span> have observed that, especially when it comes to environmental law, there is a dynamic at play in the U.S. regulatory space known as the \u201cCalifornia effect.\u201d This effect, most notably demonstrated by automobile regulations,32<\/a><\/sup>Id<\/em>.<\/span> has two components: 1) California is such a large, sought-after consumer market that makers of capital-intensive products, unwilling to exit that market, tend to manufacture all the goods they sell in the U.S. in compliance with California laws due to the redundant expense of production facilities required to make a \u201cCalifornia\u201d product and a separate \u201cnational product\u201d; 2) many states tend to follow California\u2019s lead on environmental regulation, further expanding the impact of the state\u2019s laws.33<\/a><\/sup>Woods & Ma, The impact of California’s environmental regulations ripples across the U.S.<\/em>, NPR (Sept. 9, 2022) https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2022\/09\/09\/1121952184\/the-impact-of-californias-environmental-regulations-ripples-across-the-u-s. <\/span><\/a> Ideally, a food LCA law would shift food production and transportation practices as automobile regulations change the way cars are manufactured. As American agriculture is capital intensive,34<\/a><\/sup>Brent Gloy, Changes in Capital Investment on U.S. Farms<\/em>, Agric. Econ. Insights (Jul. 27, 2015), https:\/\/aei.ag\/2015\/07\/27\/changes-in-capital-investment-on-u-s-farms\/.<\/span> it\u2019s possible that a food LCA law in California could spur the sector to follow the same course as the car industry.<\/p>\n Similar Laws<\/em><\/p>\n LCA-based laws are used around the world, particularly in the EU, but, notably, also in California. In the EU, the methodology has been applied to a wide range of products and processes, from the broad sustainable use of natural resources to the regulation and recycling of wastes.35<\/a><\/sup>Sala et al., supra<\/em> note 30 at 2300.<\/span><\/a> While the EU\u2019s use of LCA in the food sector is still developing, the European Commission recently announced that its \u201cFarm to Fork Strategy\u201d \u2013 which, as its name suggests, is an LCA-based initiative \u2013 \u201cis at the heart of the European Green Deal aiming to make food systems fair, healthy and environmentally-friendly.\u201d36<\/a><\/sup>European Commission, Farm to Fork strategy<\/em>, https:\/\/food.ec.europa.eu\/horizontal-topics\/farm-fork-strategy_en (last visited Nov. 16, 2022).<\/span> The Strategy aims to promote food sustainability in the production, processing, wholesale, retail, consumption, and waste phases of the food lifecycle.37<\/a><\/sup>European Commission, Farm to Fork strategy: For a fair, healthy and environmentally-friendly food system<\/em>, https:\/\/food.ec.europa.eu\/system\/files\/2020-05\/f2f_action-plan_2020_strategy-info_en.pdf (last visited Nov. 16, 2022).<\/span> As noted in footnote 4, aspects of the Strategy have inspired intense pushback from farmers, which, in turn, has spurred European lawmakers to modify parts of the law. California lawmakers should keep this stakeholder engagement top of mind when designing any food LCA law.<\/p>\n The most notable example of an LCA law in California is the state\u2019s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS). The LCFS requires producers and importers of transport fuels sold in California to ensure that those fuels meet the state\u2019s increasingly stringent carbon standards, which require annual reductions in the \u201ccarbon intensity\u201d of fuels.38<\/a><\/sup>Cal. Air Res. Bd., Low Carbon Fuel Standard: About<\/em>, https:\/\/ww2.arb.ca.gov\/our-work\/programs\/low-carbon-fuel-standard\/about (last visited Nov. 16, 2022).<\/span> This intensity, which is measured using a “life cycle assessment[,] examines the GHG emissions associated with the production, transportation, and use of a given fuel. The life cycle assessment includes direct emissions associated with producing, transporting, and using the fuels, as well as significant indirect effects on GHG emissions, such as changes in land use for some biofuels.”39<\/a><\/sup>Id<\/em>.<\/span> As the law functions by imposing a total GHG release cap on the entire fuel lifecycle, rather than individual limits on the various lifecycle stages, regulated entities can flexibly determine where to cut emissions. The law has withstood legal challenges, as will be discussed below, and has proven to be highly effective at achieving its stated goals.40<\/a><\/sup>Daniel Sperling, How (Almost) Everyone Came To Love Low Carbon Fuels In California<\/em>, Forbes, Oct. 17, 2018.<\/span> Particularly relevant here, the LCFS also overcame intense political pushback,41<\/a><\/sup>Id<\/em>.<\/span> despite California being home to a booming oil industry that produced around 10% of the nation\u2019s total supply at the time the law was passed (partly due to the LCFS, this share has dropped to 3%).42<\/a><\/sup>U.S. Energy Info. Admin., Petroleum and Other Liquids: Crude Oil Production<\/em>, https:\/\/www.eia.gov\/dnav\/pet\/pet_crd_crpdn_adc_mbbl_a.htm (last visited Nov. 16, 2022).<\/span><\/p>\n While not LCA-based regulations, there are two other California laws relevant as comparators to the food LCA policy advanced here: Proposition 12, or \u201cthe pork law,\u201d \u2013 the constitutionality of which, discussed below, was recently affirmed by the Supreme Court \u2013 and the recently announced ban of gasoline car sales in the state to go into effect in 2035. The pork law requires that any pork sold in California derive from pigs reared in confinements spacious enough to allow the pigs to physically turn around. Like the LCFS and LCA law proposed here, the pork law only allows into the state products whose out-of-state production features meet certain standards.43<\/a><\/sup>Emily Hoeven, California pig law exposes a divided America<\/em>, Cal Matters, Oct. 12, 2022.<\/span> The gasoline car ban is similar, as the majority of manufacturing plants impacted lie outside of California. While the actual point of sale being regulated is transactions with consumers in the state, the effect of the ban will be to push the global automobile industry towards electric vehicle production, given the market power of California\u2019s consumer base.44<\/a><\/sup>Soumya Karlamangla, What to Know About California\u2019s Ban on New Gasoline-Powered Cars<\/em>, N.Y. Times, Aug. 29, 2022.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em>Political Feasibility<\/em><\/p>\n Perhaps the most significant challenge to passing this law would be the political opposition it would likely face from California\u2019s powerful farm sector. The state\u2019s massive agriculture industry, the largest in the country at $49B in output value,45<\/a><\/sup>Cal. Dept. of Food and Agric., More than 100 Years Protecting and Promoting Agriculture in the Golden State<\/em>, https:\/\/www.cdfa.ca.gov\/CDFA-History.html (last visited Nov. 16, 2022).<\/span> is a powerful political force at both the state46<\/a><\/sup>Michael Wines and Jennifer Medina, Farmers Try Political Force to Twist Open California\u2019s Taps<\/em>, N.Y. Times, Dec. 30, 2015.<\/span> and federal level.47<\/a><\/sup>Kitty Felde and Viveca Novak, The Politics of Drought: California Water Interests Prime the Pump in Washington<\/em>, Open Secrets, Apr. 10, 2014.<\/span> However, there are several factors that could contribute to its acceptance of the law.<\/p>\n First, if the law were to target only food sold in the state, a substantial portion of food grown in the state would be exempted.48<\/a><\/sup>Alternatively, the law could be designed to cover both food sold in the state and, to the extent this category does not overlap with the former, food grown in the state. This second approach carries the substantial benefit of shielding California from many more of the local harms, discussed above, wrought by the state\u2019s agriculture industry. Regulators may want to weigh the salience of this benefit against the political gains likely to flow from exempting large swathes of the in-state industry.<\/span> $20.8B of that $49B comes from international exports,49<\/a><\/sup>Cal. Dept. of Food and Agric., California Agricultural Statistics Review 2020-2021<\/em>.<\/span> removing this 42% of California crops not destined for consumption in-state. What\u2019s more, much of the remaining ~$29B represents food sold to other states.