Researchers argue that alternative hog barn systems can likely be operated as productively and economically as sow-stall and liquid manure systems.
However, farmers whose livelihoods are tied to tight margins in an extremely competitive industry have a simple request: prove it.
“The hog industry is not in a situation where it can afford to spend extra money on anything,” said producer Dan Klippenstein of Niverville, Man.
“My opinion is that it is much harder to manage that type of system. Costs are higher. You have a whole slew of additional costs. You need a different kind of producer and a different type of employee.”
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However, change could be forced upon producers.
The European Union and a number of U.S. states have banned gestating sow stalls, and the Winnipeg Humane Society and other groups are waging an intense campaign to do the same in Manitoba, which has the Prairies’ biggest sow herd.
Research at the University of Minnesota, University of Manitoba and the Prairie Swine Centre in Saskatoon suggests open-housed gestating sows can be as productive and cost about the same to manage as stall-housed gestating sows.
The U of M’s National Centre for Livestock and the Environment (NCLE) is running side-by-side production trials of two open-housing systems and comparing production and economic results of these to typical sow-stall operations to develop an understanding of the differences in cost of production and animal husbandry practices.
However, Klippenstein said the researchers won’t convince farmers unless they can show that the two systems have equal operating costs at a commercial level.
“Research and commercial are two different things,” he said.
“Maybe it can be done. Maybe it can’t. There’s a lot to prove.”
Manitoba Pork Council chair Karl Kynoch, whose organization funds research at the NCLE, the Prairie Swine Centre and other centres, said he is not convinced open housing can work, but thinks research might prove the opposite.
“One of the reasons we do so much research at the University of Manitoba is to discover two things: what will work and what will not,” Kynoch said.
He hopes enough research can be done on open housing to allow producers to make informed choices when they consider new barns.
He said an informed choice will be better than rejecting open housing because of lack of knowledge or embracing the system without knowing whether it will be too costly and problematic.
“We do this so a producer doesn’t switch over to something that doesn’t work,” Kynoch said.
Manitoba Egg Farmers has been more aggressive in adopting alternative production methods.
The marketing board requires all new producers who receive quota to provide enriched cages rather than standard ones.
As well, new structures built by all producers after 2018 will have to incorporate some form of enriched cages, which provide more room and perches for birds.
The group believes consumers will increasingly demand what they believe are more humane production methods, and it doesn’t want producers to build new facilities that might be disrupted by future regulatory changes.
However, Harold Froese, a director with Manitoba Egg Farmers, acknowledged it would be harder for the hog industry to take a similar leap of faith because it doesn’t have the same safety net of managed prices to catch a potential fall.
“We have the huge advantage of supply management, and we are profitable all the time,” Froese said.
“The added costs over time, as more producers switch eventually, will be reflected in the cost of production (which can be used to justify higher prices that can be imposed in a supply managed system).”
Froese said his organization does not have proof that egg production using enriched cage systems can be done as cheaply or productively as with the present system, but felt it could take the chance because of supply management. As well, there were more risks in not embracing alternative systems.
“If you are retooling now, and we don’t take a leadership role, a guy could come to us in five years and ask us: why didn’t you tell me? As egg farmer leaders, we wouldn’t be doing our jobs.”
However, he sympathizes with hog producers, who operate in an open market without managed production and prices.
“They’re just trying to survive. How do you even start?”
Froese said embracing alternative systems like open housing might allow producers to head off the animal rights activists who want to shut down animal agriculture.
“We decided we had to lead this thing. With some of the activists, you don’t know which way to turn, but you’ve got to try,” Froese said.
“We wanted to move the industry past the argument of cage-versus-no-cage.
“We thought there’s got to be something that meets the five freedoms (animal welfare standards) and still allows us to maintain cages.”
Klippenstein said he thinks the costs of moving to alternative systems for hogs will likely be too great. He also thinks it would be pointless because nothing will satisfy animal rights activists.
“It’s all related to not wanting to have animals for food,” he said.
“If people adjust (their barn designs), there will be a next thing and a next thing and a next thing. They’ll keep going. Stalls are just the start. Stalls is not the real agenda.”
Prairie hog producers are watching ongoing research on open housing and manure management.
Kynoch said the results, and the directions governments go in the future, will determine whether there is a vibrant hog industry a generation from now.
“That’s why we’re trying to get the research done as fast as possible,” he said.
“If we don’t get some new alternatives out there (that make production costs drop), the regulations are going to kill this industry.”
