Manitoba under pressure to ban dry stalls
Monday, December 5, 2011
Animal welfare groups have targeted the province and livestock experts are concerned that what happens there will set a precedent for the rest of the country
by DON STONEMAN
Before the National Farmers Union (NFU) held its national convention in London in late November, member Rock Geluk, a Kent County organic pork producer, looked over the Manitoba chapter's resolution calling for the banning of dry sow stalls by 2017 and decided he could support it.
Geluk, 36, who raises sows in groups both inside low-cost structures and outdoors, is quietly critical of conventional pork production because, he says, economics forces crowding of many animals into as small a space in barns as possible. Geluk, an agriculture diploma graduate of the University of Guelph, says the "science" of animal welfare seems to be based on production factors. Sows are crammed into barns until they don't produce as many piglets. Feeder pigs are added to barns until they don't grow as fast. When those key production numbers fall, animals must be suffering. In reality, he says, producers don't know what the animals are feeling.
Geluk doesn't want to see barns bulldozed and thinks five and a half years is a reasonable time for the industry to make a wholesale conversion. Not everyone is so sure.
In many jurisdictions, commitments have been made to phase out dry sow stalls, the most contentious issue surrounding pork production. The key question is, when must that conversion be made?
"Manitoba Pork commits to encourage producers to phase out by 2025 the style of dry sow stalls currently used," says a report published in March. The reasoning behind that is the cost. "Converting existing sow barns to group-housed barns has been estimated to exceed $1 million per barn," the same document says.
The NFU also seems determined to turn back the clock. "Sow stalls have been a primary mechanism to allow for the expansion and operation of industrial hog production, which has forced most small hog producers out of hog production," says the Manitoba NFU resolution. Manitoba Pork says there are 700 producers left in the province.
Ontario Pork board director and NFU member Oliver Haan of Belleville, Ontario, says 2017 is just too soon after a devastating price downturn and increased feed costs put many producers out of business and drove others to the brink. "In five and a half years, the pork industry in Canada won't have the resources to retrofit barns," says Haan. "We have to look at some of the other ideas." He likes 2025 as a final deadline. A mandate to convert sow barns to loose housing as they are refitted makes sense to him. Based on a 25-year lifespan, many barns in Ontario will have to be refitted by 2025, he says.
"I think that would be palatable to the industry and hopefully meet all the wishes of certain parts of society," says Haan.
Both Geluk and Haan currently manage sows in loose housing systems. They also sell into niche markets. While Geluk hauls his organically produced pigs to Elmira for shipment to DuBreton's packing plant in Quebec, Oliver and Renate Haan sell meat from their pigs at farmers markets.
"This gentleman (Geluk) is getting value from a different housing system and that's how it should be. It makes very good business sense. Changing facilities for the sake of changing without a return doesn't make good business sense. We have to look at both sides."
Haan says that he and his wife Renate "made a decision many years ago to go with loose housing." It was based on their markets and existing facilities. Oliver doesn't believe all producers should go down that path. "We have to keep in mind that the production of food is a business," he says.
However, making sound business decisions is getting harder as the rhetoric heats up. Manitoba pork producers are facing an anti-dry stall campaign. Crystal Mackay, executive director of the Ontario Farm Animal Council, says last year the activists placed ads on widely-watched Hockey Night in Canada and Coronation Street in Winnipeg.
"The media buy is inexpensive" in Manitoba, Mackay says. But with cable and satellite TV, advertisers "reach a lot of people."
Manitoba the target province
Mark Fynn, animal care specialist with the Manitoba Pork Council, says the National Farmers Union doesn't represent many pork producers. He says he hasn't yet talked to the NFU head office about the resolution and what it is trying to achieve.
"There's no denying that Manitoba has been the target province for this issue," Fynn says. "We have a government that is fairly sensitive" to criticism of the hog industry and the pressure was stepped up to coincide with a recent provincial election.
Fynn says Canadians for the Ethical Treatment of Farm Animals (CETFA) "has a fairly similar agenda to PETA and the Humane Society of the United States and "it isn't necessarily with animal welfare in mind." Other groups "are more animal welfare-focused. CETFA "are trying to play more off the imagery side of things than the science side." He is certain that CETFA wants to take the issue nationally.
Sow stalls came into place to keep animals healthy, Fynn points out.
OFAC's Mackay says "the jury is out" on what the outcome of the situation in Manitoba will mean.
"My concern is that what happens with Manitoba will set a precedent for the country," she says. "We are Canadian pork producers. We export Canadian pork, not Manitoba pork."
The Farm Animal Council closed in Manitoba two years ago, Mackay says, so the pork industry is fighting this on its own. "The divide and conquer concept is alive and well," she asserts.
Ohio attacked
The size of an industry seems to be no defense if a powerful activist group decides to take it on. Across Lake Erie, the state of Ohio has mandated that no new dry sow stall barns can be built after the end of this year and that dry stall technology will be phased out by 2025.
Ohio is the ninth-ranked pork producer in the United States and, not incidentally, second in egg production. Battery egg cage barns will be banned as well. Agriculture is the number one industry adding US$98 billion to the state economy and employing more than one million people, according to the Ohio Farm Bureau.
That strong position didn't help Ohio when an emboldened Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) attacked battery cages and gestation stalls after having its way in Florida, Arizona and California, where livestock production wasn't as important.
Members had barely taken their oaths of office on a newly-created Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board, set up to maintain the well-being of livestock and poultry, when the HSUS launched a battle to take it over via a ballot initiative, a petition signed by citizens to force a public vote.
It would have cost producers millions of dollars to defend their side with no more than a 50-50 chance of winning, says David White, senior director for issues management with the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation. Instead, Ohio Governor Ted Strickland negotiated an agreement between farm groups, including soybean and corn growers who provide livestock and poultry feed, and the HSUS. The 2025 ban on battery cages and gestation stalls was a result.
There is a silver lining in the cloud, however. White says the agreement calls for joint funding of research. "To our knowledge, HSUS has not partnered with animal agriculture here in the U.S. on conducting research, so that would make it a precedent," says White, who says the well-funded HSUS hasn't yet ponied up with a cheque.
"We believe we are leading the charge" rather than surrendering, says White, who spoke at a pork seminar in Shakespeare, in western Ontario, recently. The uncertainty was hurting agriculture's position as the number one industry in Ohio, he says.
He cites the instance of a third-generation, family-run poultry operation which decided, during the middle of the crisis, to set up a one-million-hen laying operation in next door Indiana because of the unstable political situation in Ohio.
The public still needs to be educated, White says. The average person in the United States trusts farmers. But polls show that 70 per cent of them believe that food animals should be treated the same as household pets are treated.
Change for the right reasons
What happened in Ohio "is a powerful case study," says the Ontario Farm Animal Council's Mackay. "We don't have the regulatory framework here with ballot initiatives, but we have a food industry that can make buying decisions in a day that can affect farm practices from P.E.I. to B.C.," she says.
She isn't suggesting that farmers give in to activists. Mackay says her message to an Ontario Pork policy conference in September was "don't make a change because of activist elements. You will never please them. Do it for the right reasons, for marketing reasons, not because of noisy pressure. At the end of the day, we have to provide people with food. Somebody has to pay."
Mackay says that, at a summit for animal agriculture in Ottawa a few weeks ago, a key message was that there are five pillars to food production; food safety, human health and safety, animal welfare, the environment and economics. Going too far in one direction puts the others out of kilter, Mackay says.
Environmental and human health issues were only raised after battery cages were banned in California, she says. Free-range hens have a bigger environmental footprint than caged hens. And workers picking thousands of eggs off the floor were exposed to more dust than in the cage barns. On top of that "the anti-poverty groups started getting noisy, saying ‘you are legislating my food choice,'" Mackay says.
On a more positive note, Mackay says McDonalds Corporation has turned away from negotiating with groups like PETA and instead "is investing" in the industry-led Coalition For A Sustainable Egg Supply "that is looking at positive ways to feed our country."
The Coalition has Canadian members, Mackay says. It is considering expanding to other food products as well as eggs, so there might be a place there for pork producers as well.
In Canada, the national pig code is being rewritten with input from producers, and sow housing, along with castration, is at the top of a list of contentious issues. The codes represent "a national understanding of what is acceptable and what is not," in terms of handling livestock, says Jackie Wepruk, general manager of the National Farm Animal Care Council, which writes animal care codes for Canada.
The first code was written in 1993 and an addendum for early-wean pigs was added in 2003. Since then, the process has changed. There is now a science committee responsible for writing codes, Wepruk says. The rewriting process began in the fall of 2010. A draft code will be published before a 60-day comment period in about a year. The final code will be released and published in May of 2013.
There is room for "all those difficult questions" to be discussed, Wepruk says. "The whole code is to be science-informed," she says. The industry will "really have codes that are defensible." BP
Pork production rules for Ohio
The new Ohio Livestock Care Standards say that current hog producers must phase out gestation stalls by Dec. 31, 2025. Then all sows are to be housed using alternative systems. "It is understood that, in all housing systems, sows may be housed in breeding/gestation stalls until they are confirmed pregnant," says a document issued by the Ohio Department of Agriculture. No new barns using gestation stalls will be approved after Dec. 31, 2011. Current barns can be rebuilt with stalls if they were destroyed by a catastrophe, such as fire or flood. After Dec. 31, any new facilities that are built must utilize alternative house systems.
Currently, hog farms in Ohio are subject to inspection under the environmental livestock permitting program if they house more than 2,500 hogs weighing more than 55 pounds or 10,000 hogs weighing less than 55 pounds each, says David White, senior director for issues management with the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation. Additionally, hog farms of these sizes must have a permit to operate and a permit to install their operation from the Ohio Department of Agriculture. The livestock standards board's rules will be enforced by the department of agriculture, using a complaint-driven process. Complainants must provide their names and contact information by phone or in writing. Complaints alleging animal cruelty, abuse and neglect are filed with local humane societies and, if the complaint is upheld, may result in a criminal penalty. BP