YOUNG PRODUCER Working and Learning: A College Student's Summer Internship Experience at CDFA by UC Davis Student Alexis Avila As students pass through their four years of college, all end up choosing a career in a field of employment in which they have personally experienced the most impact from. For me, it has been a collection of experiences that has led up to spending the summer with the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA). My name is Alexis Avila and I am a fourth year student majoring in Animal Science and Management and minoring in Communications at the University of California, Davis. This past summer, I had the opportunity to complete an internship program with the Animal Care Program (ACP) under the Animal Health and Food Safety Services (AHFSS) branch at the CDFA to gain relevant experience in the livestock industry to aid in my educational goals of working within a government program that supports livestock production. Ever since I was a young girl, I have had a deep passion for the agriculture industry and throughout my educational journey, I have been determined to explore different career opportunities that allowed me to work with livestock. My interest in the ACP began with an animal welfare course at UC Davis that briefly touched on how governmental agencies are involved in the livestock production industry, and after that course I made it my priority to land a summer internship within the CDFA. As many know, the CDFA plays a vital role in the agriculture industry to ensure consumers have a sustainable, humanely raised, and healthy plate of food on their table at the end of the day. The ACP is a new program within the AHFSS branch that started in 2018 when Proposition 12 was enacted into legislation. The program is led by Dr. Elizabeth Cox in which the program’s mission is, “To serve animal agriculture producers and California consumers by promoting and protecting the welfare and care of animals in agriculture in order for Californians to have access to food that is sourced from humanely and sustainably raised animals.” While Proposition 12 has many logistical standards, the Animal Care Program’s goal is to ensure that breeding pigs, egg laying hens and veal calves are raised in a suitable environment
34 California Cattleman November 2023
that meets or exceeds the minimum confinement standards. For breeding pigs, this means they are required to be housed in an environment that allows them to turn around freely, stand up, and fully extend all limbs without restriction of a structure or another animal, as well as a minimum 24 square feet of usable floor space requirement per breeding hog. In egg laying hen enclosures, there are various styles of housing systems but all must provide the hen with 1-1.5 square feet of usable floor space, the ability to fully extend all limbs, stand up, turn around freely, as well as other necessary enrichments. Lastly, veal calf enclosures must have at least 43 square feet of usable floor space with more space as the calf grows, the ability to stand up, fully extend all limbs, and turn around freely. Producers who raise these covered animals in the state of California must comply with these standards and have their facility audited by CDFA or other certified third party auditors on an annual basis. Producers and/or distributors who have the intention to sell whole meat products or eggs from covered animals in California, whether they are from in state or out of state, fall under the Proposition 12 criteria. The audit process entails a walk through of the facilities in which covered animals/covered products are housed in, as well as a review of relevant documentation of these animals/products. Throughout the summer, I had been assigned multiple projects that allowed me to learn in depth about the logistics of Proposition 12 and how the ACP operates. One of my first projects was to discuss with the program’s