Should pork producers be considered professionals?

Friday, December 5, 2014

A University of British Columbia animal welfare specialist believes they should and argues that a number of developments in agriculture suggest the time is ripe

by DON STONEMAN

John Van Engelen of Thedford, in Lambton County, has a keen eye for his pigs, developed over more than 35 years of operating and making a living for his family from commercial pork operation.

There is constant experimentation with new technologies in the Van Engelen 250-sow barn. The newest is a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) system that tracks individual sows for whether they are eating and even for heat detection. Van Engelen is working with scientists reviewing the outcomes of these studies, upgrading knowledge, monitoring the operation in all aspects and sharing those results via tours of producers from across North America and overseas.

Several years ago, Van Engelen's Hog-Tied Farms Ltd. won a Premier's Award for Agri-Food Innovation and Excellence for developing a modified U.S. ventilation system that lowered production costs by getting pigs to market in 15 per cent less time while improving air quality, increasing growth rates and making the barn safer for workers and pigs. The system, which is also more environmentally friendly, is now commercially available for use in other producers' barns. And, of course, the farm is Canadian Quality Assurance (CQA) approved.

Does this make Van Engelen a "professional" pork producer? He likely meets the elements needed for such a designation, if there was one. In fact, there is no professional standard for pig and other livestock producers, but David Fraser, program director, animal welfare program, faculty of land food systems, University of British Columbia, says there should and could be. With money and producer pride back in the pork industry, he argues, the time may be ripe to make that happen.

"Professions typically involve three elements: provision of a service that people need and value; competence in a specialized area of skill and knowledge demonstrated to peers; and creation of public trust by respecting the interests and ethical expectations of society, normally through self-regulation."

Several recent changes make a professional model of animal production appear more feasible than in the past. An increasing need for food is likely to cause animal production to be viewed as an important service, and the growing trend toward certification of farms, if organized and led by producers themselves, could provide a means of ensuring competence and adherence to ethical standards.

Setting up livestock management as a self-regulated "profession" will help to deal with the public issues at hand, such as concerns that are raised when exposés level criticism at all industrial producers, Fraser argues.

A half century ago, "people trusted farmers because they were agrarians," and our culture still trusts those who farm as they did 50 years ago, Fraser says. Livestock production got into trouble in the eyes of the public when it was perceived to be moving from an agrarian model to an industrial model. "We don't trust industrialists," Fraser says, since the time of Britain's industrial revolution, when children worked long hours in mills and eventually regulations were brought in to phase out unsafe working conditions.

Fraser argues that a professional model would be an option for livestock operators working at "quite a high commercial standard to recast themselves as a profession rather than an industry."

Self-regulation the key
A model for a professional standard is available, Fraser says. Newly updated codes of practice for pork production could be that standard, with a commodity group requiring adherence to the most recent code of practice mandatory for its producers.

Fraser stresses that "self-regulation" is the key to a professional designation, as opposed to producers having to meet a corporate standard imposed by customers such as a retailer or the McDonald's chain, or by provincial regulations that are a part of an animal welfare act.

Unlike doctors or engineers, however, livestock producers don't have a law that allows them to self-regulate. But if enough consumers or enough retail and restaurant companies say they only want products from farmers that are demonstrated to be conforming to the code, that could be pretty powerful. "That would move a lot of product towards a professional standard."

Fraser has presented a verbal proposal for professionalism for several years to producer groups (including a swine meeting at Shakespeare in western Ontario). Veterinarians "get it," but the first reaction from producers is that 'we are in a business' rather than a profession.

Fraser says the reaction is fair. "Some producers say they are already moving in that direction" with various certifications. CQA status "sounds like a big step in the direction of professionalism. Specifically, standards promote professionalism if the system of standards and certification is handled by members of the profession themselves (and not just imposed from outside), and if the standards are such that they capture public concerns and create public trust."

Fraser points out that veterinarians, members of a self-regulated profession, generally run businesses too and that being a businessmen and a professional is not incompatible.

The good care that highly qualified producers give to their livestock is highly underrated today, Fraser says. In an article promoting livestock operator professionalism for all farmed species, published recently in the peer-reviewed international journal Livestock Science, Fraser argues that stockmanship is more important than systems such as loose sow housing versus stall housing, when the confinement of animals is concerned. Hygiene, health protection, nutrition and handling all depend upon the skill of the barn staff.

While there is a huge emphasis now in Europe and across North America on ridding pig barns of sow gestation stalls, and cows from tie-stalls, Fraser writes that it is clear that "basic welfare outcomes" such as lameness, injuries and survival show extremely wide variation between farms with the same sort of physical environment (see Chart 1 on page 10).

Convincing the public that livestock is well looked after is one issue. The other side of the coin is that producers do not feel well served by the current model. Commercial livestock producers are unhappy because they feel that they are operating at a high standard while others who claim to be in the same business are not.

Fraser cites the case of a large B.C. dairy farm, Chilliwack Cattle Sales, which was the subject of a Mercy For Animals exposé last June. Legitimate dairy producers were horrified by what they saw in the hidden camera video, Fraser says, but powerless to end to it, even via the provincial milk marketing board. The B.C. health authority could stop milk pickup only for human health concerns, not because of poor animal care. In the end, a processor, under threat of a boycott, defied a provincial law and refused to take milk from the farm, forcing its shutdown.

Animal welfare standard
Fraser says one province, which he did not name because the proposal has not been made public, is moving towards requiring its dairy producers to follow the new dairy code of practice, imposing a de facto professional standard. "If it is the producers that require it of themselves," it is a professional standard, Fraser says. The dairy code, released in 2009, was the first of the revised codes. Fraser describes it as very progressive,  because it calls for pain management when "hot debudding" calves' horns. "It required a lot of courage for producers writing up that code to make it a requirement."

A number of provinces now reference that dairy code as a standard in their animal welfare act.

A recent study of beef producers in Western Canada reveals they "are frustrated with amateur operations but they don't have any means to police themselves….they hated the fact that hobbyists, part-timers and others were doing what they were doing without good practices," Fraser says. They might be open to the concept of a professional designation.

What would imposition of a standard mean to producers who don't meet it? "It's not as if we can turn a switch and animal production goes from being an industrial type of business to a professional type of business," Fraser allows. If there was a switch to a professional designation "there will be a bumpy ride between the two." There would be a long period of transition to a professional standard and not all producers would get there.

Agrarian production would not be replaced, Fraser emphasizes. There would still be people "raising pasture pork on the back 40 and free-range eggs with a couple of hundred birds." Society accepts those people producing food on a small scale.

He cites the British nurse Florence Nightingale, who was famously appalled by standards and field hospital care during the Crimean War in the 1850s, and launched the world's first nursing hospital around 1860. It wasn't until 1901 that New Zealand became the first country to require a national designation of Registered Nurse, now universally used around the world today.

In the intervening years, some "nurses" upgraded their skills while others were left behind, Fraser says. There are still people who aren't registered nurses providing first aid care, Fraser points out, comparing them to agrarian producers.

A professional pork producer designation could be held by the manager overseeing barn workers. Fraser cites the professional engineer model. The engineer "makes sure the bridge is built to a standard even though he isn't making the rivets."

Though it is too soon for a reaction from scientists to his article, which was published in September, producer reaction has been generally positive. Stuart DeVries, general manager of Total Swine Genetics and a former chair of the Ontario Pork Industry Council, likens Fraser's proposal to a professional designation in Denmark for livestock technicians brought in perhaps 10 years ago.

He agrees that the time is right for better training of livestock personnel working in barns now that "the nine-year financial endurance contest" appears to be over. Pig recording-keeping companies such as PigChamp and other benchmarking groups "keep showing that the companies that have the better stock people just do better, period. In the best-run units, having good people is one of the key differentiating factor when it comes to true profitability."

However, there is some skepticism. "Because of public interest, I would be surprised if there was ever a move towards a 'self-regulating' profession in the way the author defined," writes Bill Weaver, pork production instructor at Ridgetown College of Agricultural Technology, in an email. "I would expect to see more mandatory certifications that would objectively show excellence in the important skill areas in which the public has a concern."

Weaver says farmers in general and livestock farmers in particular are at a significant level of professionalism which will only increase in the future. This will be partly as a response to market and customer expectations and also as a means of operating their farms as efficiently as possible.

"This type of professionalism will extend through many areas, including livestock management, nutrient management and especially personnel management. These abilities are exhibited by many of today's producers and levels will only increase in the future," he adds.

With a corn crop standing in the field and memories of last year's early winter in mind, Van Engelen himself has few moments to ponder a professional designation, while allowing that CQA's animal care assessment, conducted by a veterinarian, might fit the bill. He echoes Bill Weaver's point of view that there are many requirements to farming already. There are environmental plans for manure and livestock medicine for the pigs and that is just the top of the list.  

"There are a lot of things we have to be doing all of the time just to be farming," he says, as he prepares to put on yet another hat and fire up the combine on a cold November morning. BP

Study shows most producers do not use the term 'welfare'
The often very public discussion about "animal welfare" is being fuelled by the consumer and the activist side. Rarely are producers asked what they think about the issues.

In a study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics a year ago, animal welfare scientist Jeffrey Spooner reported on the results of intensive interviews with 20 pork producers about their thoughts on animal welfare. The producers interviewed were from Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. Of those producers, 17 were farrow-to-finish operators as opposed to farrow-to-wean or straight finishers. One was an organic producer with relatively few pigs. At the other extreme, one managed an operation with tens of thousands of pigs. Spooner admits that this cross-section is hardly indicative of the industry but still offered an illuminating look at producers' views.

The abstract of the report says the producers "saw their efforts as providing pigs with dry, thermally regulated, indoor environments where animals received abundant feed, careful monitoring and where prospective disease outbreaks could be minimized and controlled. Emphasis was also placed on low-stress handling and agreeable working conditions which were believed to promote good animal care. The fact that pigs tend to respond to such conditions with steady growth reinforced the belief that good welfare was provided.

"Participants supported the use of sow gestation stalls, but with some reservations, and expressed concern about welfare problems that could occur if sows were grouped. Invasive procedures (castration, tail-docking, teeth clipping) were recognized as painful but were accepted because they were seen as: (1) necessary for sales or management; (2) satisfactory trade-offs to prevent worse welfare problems such as injury or infection; or (3) sufficiently short-term to be relatively unimportant."

Spooner's study further says: "When participants were asked to describe what the term 'farm animal welfare' meant to them, most indicated that they did not use the phrase. In fact, many associated the term (welfare) with criticisms of production practices raised by those outside the industry.

"Others regarded the term as indicative of a failure by non-producers to understand the integral relationship between adequate animal care and operational viability. Most participants did not equate good lives for pigs with outdoor or 'natural' environments." BP