Based on the participants at a March 14 forum at its headquarters, it appears the Winnipeg Humane Society will soon become much more aggressive in its efforts to ban gestation stalls in Manitoba, says the executive director of the Manitoba Farm Animal Council.
“Most of the time I tell people (farmers) that they shouldn’t be scared of this kind of stuff,” said Shanyn Silinski. “This is something to be scared of.”
Last weekend the Winnipeg Humane Society, which has been advocating for a ban on sow stalls in Manitoba for a decade, brought Paul Shapiro to Winnipeg.
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Shapiro, senior director of the U.S. Humane Society’s factory farming campaign, participated in a forum with six animal rights groups, including the World Society for the Protection of Animals.
As one of the Humane Society’s leaders in its Proposition 2 campaign in California, Shapiro was instrumental in passing the state’s legislative ban of gestation stalls for hogs and battery cages for hens last November.
“They (the Humane Society) don’t go into places without every intention of getting their way,” said Silinski. “They spent $9 million (in California) and forced the farm community to fight back to the tune of $9 million.”
Before the meeting in Winnipeg, Silinski and Shapiro debated on talk radio programs the issue of a legislated ban in Manitoba. Silinski’s primary argument is that legislation is unnecessary because Manitobans are already taking care of their farm animals.
“We already have welfare laws, we already have codes of practice, we have enforceable acts and we already have research moving us forward,” Silinski said in an interview with The Western Producer. “We don’t need to be legislated into doing what we’re already doing.”
Furthermore, Silinski, who raises cattle on her farm east of Winnipeg, said the Humane Society wants to impose its values, without really knowing anything about raising animals.
“They’re here (in Manitoba) to tell us how to farm without any real understanding of what farmers do,” she said.
Along with its work on Proposition 2 in California, where farmers must replace gestation stalls by 2015, the U.S. Humane Society has successfully lobbied for similar bans in other states. Oregon, Arizona, Florida and Colorado have also passed laws banning what the Humane Society calls extreme confinement systems.
“It’s important to note what these laws state,” said Shapiro, in an interview from his office in Washington, D.C., before his meeting in Winnipeg.
“There are a lot of misperceptions about these laws, especially in the agriculture community…. We’re talking about the most extreme forms of confinement that prevent the animals from engaging in very basic movement.”
The laws state that the animals must be able to do four things.
“Stand up, lie down, turn around and extend their limbs. That’s it,” said Shapiro, who before joining the Humane Society founded Compassion Over Killing, an organization with a mandate of promoting vegetarianism and ending animal abuse.
Asked why legislation is a necessary step, Shapiro said companies like Smithfield Foods, America’s largest pork producer, have committed to phasing out gestation crates, primarily to satisfy changing consumer demands.
However, there are agribusiness owners who continue to defend gestation stalls, Shapiro said, which forces the Humane Society to a legislative solution.
Laurie Connor, a professor of animal science at the University of Manitoba who is doing research into alternatives to gestation stalls, doesn’t support the Humane Society’s strategies.
A better approach is to work with farmers, not line up against them, she said.
“I think the industry has basically accepted that we do need to be making a shift, but it’s not something that can be done overnight,” she said. “It’s not as simple as going out and saying, OK, let’s put them all in a group…. Producers need to be able to adopt strategies that work effectively for them.”
In addition, legislation doesn’t engage producers in developing strategies for alternatives, Connor said. All it does is make producers defensive because it spreads the perception that farmers are uncaring about the welfare of their animals.
