Ag Insight: Science or Sentiment - Which will rule livestock production?

Saturday, March 1, 2008

Research suggests that cage-raised birds and gestation stalls for sows improve animal welfare, as well as offering environmental and economic benefits. Yet animal rights activists and some retailers are moving against them

by JIM DALRYMPLE

Livestock producers are facing many questions about the production methods used in commercial farming operations. Canadian-developed Codes of Practice are in place for all livestock and provide guidelines accepted by all interest groups. Additional constraints are being placed on farmers by processors, retailers and some consumers at a time when almost all commodities are under financial pressure.

In this context, five freedoms have been recognized as defining ideal conditions for animal well-being. They are:

• Freedom from hunger and thirst;
• Freedom from discomfort;
• Freedom from pain, injury and disease;
• Freedom to express normal behaviour;
• Freedom from fear and stress.

Although these freedoms are considered admirable, few humans can claim to live under these five principles. Most current production practices allow animals to grow in circumstances likely more favourably than under outdoor or "range" conditions, have higher reproductive performance and enhanced survival rates. No doubt increased sow productivity is achieved with the so-called "confinement" housing systems used today.

Swine producers in the 1980s were encouraged by scientific research to adopt gestation stalls. University of Guelph research indicated that there was a lower incidence of stillbirths and less lameness with stalls. Ideal nutrition levels for individual sows were easier to maintain, there was little opportunity for injury from sows fighting, and administration of vaccines and better results were achieved with artificial insemination. Both the poultry and swine industries have been widely criticized for their housing and handling methods over the past two to three decades.

Poultry production. Processors, retailers and consumers have questioned cage systems for egg production. Some retailers and restaurant chains are increasing efforts to remove egg production from cage or battery operations by refusing their use and sale.

However, cage production practices have improved nutrition, vaccine utilization and management over the last century. Annual egg production has increased from approximately 50 eggs per hen to over 300. Recent research emphasizes both environmental benefits and actual bird well-being from these advances in production.

European Union legislation will effectively outlaw battery or cage production systems by 2012. A number of European companies - Sainsbury's, as well as Morrisons and Marks and Spencer - may be moving to discontinue stocking eggs produced in cages or batteries.

Animal rights activists have often asserted that cage-raised birds are stressed, but recent studies at the University of Sydney which measured corticosterone, a hormone produced in response to stress, indicate similar levels in cage hens and free-range hens. Free-range poultry are faced with stress from predators while modern cage production eliminates that concern.

Hens in cages are also protected from many manure-borne diseases, parasites and extreme weather conditions. Avian influenza is also more likely to be prevented in cage systems as these birds are not exposed to wild birds, other birds and animals, and biosecurity is superior.

When the five freedoms are considered, modern systems also provide nutritious food and clean water. Range-raised poultry and eggs, which producers claim are not fed animal byproducts, have the opportunity to consume worms, flies and other insects.

The current cage production systems may also be beneficial for the environment.

esearch in Britain has suggested that cage-laying systems decrease the poultry industry's impact on global warming by 10 per cent and the conversion of production to free-range systems would increase the impact on global warming by 10 per cent.

In fact, converting total egg production to organic methods would increase the industry's impact on or contribution to global warming by 40 per cent.

Pork production. Most major countries have seen significant reductions in agricultural land. In Ontario, farmland has declined from 22,841,000 to 13,501,000 acres between 1931 and 2001, and constitutes only 6.1 per cent of Ontario's land.

Currently, there are approximately 408,000 sows and bred gilts on Ontario farms. To return sows to outdoor production, with an estimated carrying capacity of three sows per acre, would require 136,000 acres of land.

At the recent Iowa Pork Congress, a retired Iowa State University extension specialist and professor explained that sows were put in stalls for their own protection to provide better animal welfare and more precise care for individual sows. Current Iowa studies indicate that, with some new combined systems that allow interaction and individual stalls in one unit, the sows prefer to stay in their stalls 80 per cent of the time.

Smithfield Foods and Maple Leaf Foods have announced plans to phase out the use of gestation stalls over the next decade. Stalls replaced tie-ups, which were common in Europe 20 years ago but were only adopted in a limited extent on Canadian farms.
VIDO - the Saskatchewan-based Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization - has established a Swine Technology Group assessing possible alternative housing systems. In Nebraska, one of the major U.S. pork producing states, sponsors of a bill that would have banned gestation stalls have withdrawn their proposed legislation.

It is unfortunate that some processors and retailers are bowing to the criticism of a minority without the benefit of sound science. In Canada, the National Animal Care Council has objectives to update and re-establish Code of Practice development and to enhance communication between all segments of the food chain.

Continued research is needed before current egg and pork production technology is replaced by practices that ultimately offer less welfare, environmental and economic benefits. BF

J.R. (Jim) Dalrymple, P. Ag., CAC, is a former Ontario government swine specialist and owner of Livestock Technology Services in Brighton.