Confinement systems Big companies are demanding changes, but not all farmers are seeing incentives
Food companies are under increasing pressure to adopt stronger animal welfare standards for suppliers, but their statements are often vague as to when changes are expected.
Most attention is devoted to ending confinement systems such as cages for laying hens and gestation sows for pork producers.
Calgary Co-op members passed a motion March 13 urging the retailer to stop selling eggs and pork from farms using intensive confinement systems within five years.
“For many of the companies, the timeline is rather vague because there really is a problem with sourcing product this way since the majority of animals are sourced from gestation stalls,” said Ed Pajor, an animal behaviourist and welfare researcher at the University of Calgary’s veterinary school.
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“It really has started to snowball this past year. The last two years have been just huge among different companies that have decide to source product this way.”
Pajor sat on McDonald’s Corp.’s animal welfare panel and the National Pork Board’s animal welfare committee and has researched humane farm animal care.
McDonald’s announced it wants pork from farms that do not use gestation stalls by 2022.
“The reaction of the pork industry was they were very disappointed with McDonald’s,” Pajor said.
“They felt it was taking away the freedom of producers to make choices, they felt producers were already moving in that direction and they felt the science wasn’t 100 percent clear.”
Pajor researched alternate sow housing when he was at Perdue University.
No system was perfect, he said.
Management plays a large role in how these systems can work, but there are no guaranteed ways to control new problems such as increased aggression among pregnant sows.
“I think we can do better on gestation stalls, but it is not clear what the alternative is and how sustainable it is or how expensive it is,” he said.
Some companies that demanded the changes offered producers bonuses and others have invested in research. However, farmers usually end up paying to renovate their barns.
“For the most part, the industry is expected to carry the large cost of doing those things,” Pajor said.
There is also a limit to what people will spend for food, and some agriculture economists are starting to investigate the costs of animal welfare. Polls show people say they are willing to pay more for kinder, gentler animal care, but lower prices guide their decisions once they enter the grocery store.
“If people believe animals should be raised in a certain way, they are not necessarily going to pay you more for doing what they think is the right thing,” he said.
A rural-urban divide exists on animal welfare and agriculture, and few urban shoppers realize that codes of practice exist.
The National Farm Animal Care Council is working with producers, processors, retailers and restaurants to develop improved codes of practices, said council manager Jackie Wepruk.
She said more food companies are under pressure to make changes, but they need to be informed about what is already being done within the agriculture industry to improve animal welfare.
“There is an encouragement to move away from confinement based systems,” she said.
However, animal welfare is a collective responsibility and these improvements cost money, she added.
“When the conversation comes to alternate housing systems, that becomes the big question: who is going to be willing to pay for these transitions?” Wepruk said.
“The more companies that do this, the less likely they will be able to source product because it won’t be there.”
Changes are happening throughout the developed world. In 2001, the European Commission gave its members 12 years to ban sow stalls, but half the countries have not complied.
Last week, the commission wrote a formal notice letter to Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Poland and Portugal to implement the new rule or face legal action.
