There’s a lot of buzz in the North American pig industry about recent calls for suppliers of meat to McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King and other, to phase out all but selected use of sow gestation stalls by 2017.
Many people seem to see this as a recent development and blame it all on HSUS, PETA and their like.
I want to tell you about the first time I heard criticism of gestation stalls.
I attended a two day conference in which speaker after speaker criticised modern animal agriculture practices and intensive productions systems. Some speakers described alternative production methods that they felt would be more humane.
The production practices being criticized included: veal crates, battery cages for laying hens, gestation stalls and farrowing crates in pig production. Speakers claimed that use of these systems was purely profit motivated and done at the expense of the welfare of the animals.
Let me highlighted two points about the meeting:
1. It was not a meeting of animal rights activists, although there were a few activists at the meeting.
It was not a meeting of farmers: there were even fewer farmers than animal activists.
It was a meeting of scientists from all parts of the world: experts in animal behaviour, animal production, and related fields, who were concerned about the welfare implications of modern farming practices. They had gathered together to discuss how agricultural practices should be reviewed from the scientific and ethical point of view.
2. The meeting did not occur in the last couple of year. The conference was called Bio-Ethics/87 and was held in Montreal, Canada in August of 1987. Yes, it is coming up 25 years ago.
I went to that meeting confident that we were doing a good job of production, management, and animal welfare on our farm, after all, we had good performance to prove it.
I got the wind knocked out of my sails. How could there be such a disconnect between our industry’s reality and the message I was hearing in Montreal?
When they opened the floor for comments I had two points to make:
- In planning and building our barn 6 years prior we had relied on the advice of researchers, ag advisors, veterinarians, engineers, and other producers. Bases on their advice and our own observations we had chosen to use farrowing crates to reduce pre-wean mortality, and gestation stalls to prevent injuries and regulate feed intake. We had truly believed that these would enhance animal welfare, not diminish it.
- Farmers can’t work with information they aren’t aware of. If the scientists truly believed animal production practices were wrong and that better alternatives existed, then they should be taking their concerns directly to farmers: not leaving farmers in the dark and then criticizing farmers’ choices behind their backs.
And in the past 25 years:
The United Kingdom and Sweden have banned the use of sow gestation stalls for several years and bans in other European Union countries will take effect the end of this year. Australia has set a date and so have other jurisdictions.
Researchers have been studying and comparing various sow housing options. Some farmers have found their own reasons to voluntarily opt for group housing systems without external pressure or deadlines to do so. Don and I were among them, stimulated in part by that meeting in Montreal but more so by the inadequacies of the particular gestation stalls we had chosen.
Summary:
Some people in North America want to blame HSUS for the push to ban sow gestation stalls. Yes, HSUS is visible and vocal but even if HSUS were to disappear tomorrow these winds of change would not cease to blow.
I don’t expect everyone to like this message but I’d be doing a disservice not to say it as I see it.
“We cannot the direct the winds but we can adjust our sails” - a magnetic sign on our fridge
That’s it for this week
Take care
Nancy Lidster
Source:dnl farms ltd