Californians are about to learn what can happen when they try to extend their rule over the rest of the country.

The Associated Press reports that bacon and other pork products will soon be in short supply in California because Midwestern hog farmers have failed to comply with animal care requirements mandated by Proposition 12.

Officially, the Farm Animal Confinement Initiative goes into effect next year. Known as Prop 12, it bans the sale of eggs and pork and veal products in California unless production facilities meet animal-confinement standards dictated by the state.

On its face, Prop 12 deals solely with products sold within the state. The animal welfare advocates who backed the measure, however, knew the larger impacts of Prop 12.

Meat production and distribution is complicated. Part of a litter of pigs born in Iowa could be sold to feeders in Nebraska while others could go to North Carolina. All of the pigs could go then to finishers in other states and end up in multiple packinghouses. Most of the animals that would be subject to Prop 12 reside outside California.

Californians consume 15% of the pork produced in the United States — some 255 million pounds a month. But, California hog farmers only produce 45 million pounds a month.

The practical impact of Prop 12 would be to impose California’s animal husbandry rules on producers throughout the country.

Or, maybe not.

Pork producers in the Midwest have resisted changing their production practices. To provide their pigs with the space mandated by Prop 12 would require expensive renovations that pork prices won’t support.

An Iowa pork producer quoted by AP said meeting the requirements would cost $3 million, reducing the number of hogs in his facility from 300 to 250. To break even, he’d need to get another $20 on each of the remaining animals.

The financial impacts aside, producers say California ag officials have yet to make the final regulations. They don’t want to make changes without knowing precisely how they will be judged.

The industry’s attempts to get the courts to block Prop 12 have been unsuccessful.

“Why are pork producers constantly trying to overturn laws relating to cruelty to animals?” Josh Balk, of the Humane Society of the U.S. asked The Associated Press. “It says something about the pork industry when it seems its business operandi is to lose at the ballot when they try to defend the practices and then when animal cruelty laws are passed, to try to overturn them.”

One might also ask why Californians think they can dictate terms for producers in other states.

We do not dispute California’s authority to regulate livestock production within its borders, even if the regulations are wrong-headed. But Californians shouldn’t take it for granted that farmers outside the state will follow suit.

California voters are free to call the tune for pork producers in their state, but Iowa hog farmers don’t have to dance or pay the fiddler.