Agricultural News
Food Distributors Behind Gestation Crate Bans Might Want to Look at the Facts, Lindsey Says
Mon, 11 Jun 2012 19:08:04 CDT
Recent announcements by food giants McDonald's and Kroger have roiled the pork industry. Both companies, as well as other smaller food distributors and retailers, have stated they will source their pork only from producers who do not use individual sow housing.
Kroger did not set a time limit, but McDonald's put the pork industry on a deadline of ten years.
In calling for gestation crate bans, the food industry has bowed to pressure from animal rights groups, says Roy Lee Lindsey, executive director of the Oklahoma Pork Council. Lindsey spoke at length with Ron Hays recently about the effect of these announcements on the pork industry. He said these decisions are not based in science, not based in economic reality, and will cause difficulties without any real increase in animal welfare.
"This is a large challenge for our industry. There is a significant disconnect from what we do on the farm every day and what consumers know about what we do on the farm every day. And if all I do is show you a picture, it's hard for you to get a context that goes with that picture.
"Opponents of our industry--activist groups--have been very good at showing you that picture and then telling you what the context is and it not being an accurate context, not the whole context. And so that's put us behind the eight ball."
He said videos of isolated incidents of animal neglect and cruelty inflame public perception that the system is to blame, not the individuals involved. And groups that think they are doing all sows a favor by railing against gestation crates in favor of group housing are ignorant of animal behavior and scientific studies.
"AVMA (the American Veterinary Medical Association) says both types of sow housing are accreditable. Both types of housing provide adequately for the animal and the real challenge for you is that the most important part in that is the individual that provides care for that animal. You can have group-housed sows that are not well-taken care of because the caretaker doesn't do a good job. You can have sows in stalls that are treated immaculately and sows that are genuinely happy as they see the people as they come through the barns and get scratched on the head, you know, just like you would a pet.
"It's the people involved that really make the difference.
"We know, from situations where we've put sows in free-access stalls, stalls in which they can come and go, that most of the sows will spend about 80 percent of their time in the stall. And there's reasons for that. They feel comfortable there. They feel protected. They're away from others that may be more aggressive. But, if we do away with individual housing, we no longer have the ability to protect individual sows from those who may be more aggressive.
"You're always going to have one sow in a pen that is the dominant sow. She is always going to be the boss. And if you have one that is not aggressive, that is a little more timid, the more aggressive sows will keep the more timid sow away from the feeder. They're like teenagers in a peer group: They'll bully her around. And we don't know how to solve that challenge yet."
"If we follow the wishes that we are hearing, today in the news, we're going to move from a system that allows us to give each animal individual care into a system that makes individual care for each animal much more difficult."
Lindsey said the real controversy is a tempest in a teapot. Consumers aren't pushing for these changes, activist groups are. And he said the activist groups are pushing agendas that consumers don't even know about, let alone consider.
"If you start from the notion that many of these activist groups, I'll use Mercy for Animals for example, they'll tell you point blank they think everybody should be a vegetarian. Why are we in the meat business-and those who sell meat for a living-listening to people who don't buy meat tell us how to sell product?"
Lindsey said if food distributors ultimately decide to stay with arbitrary timelines about steering the entire pork industry away from using individual stall housing, they'll likely be in for a rude economic shock. Providing group housing for sows currently costs about $1,200 per sow, Lindsey.
"We're not talking about a small investment. If you've got a 600-head sow farm at $1200 a head, that's till almost three-quarters of a million dollars."
Multiplied by thousands of farms all across the country, those costs have to be recouped somewhere and it will only be through higher priced pork.
Skyrocketing prices lower demand for pork which, conveniently, is the agenda promoted by the animal rights and vegan groups that are at the center of the gestation stall debate.
You can hear Ron Hays' full conversation with Roy Lee Lindsey of the Oklahoma Pork Council by clicking on the LISTEN BAR below.
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