Ron Plain, extension specialist at the University of
Missouri, questions whether the pork industry can deliver all of the pork
retailers say they want from farms that won’t be using gestation crates for
sows.
The list of large-volume retailers has ballooned this
spring, but a survey of hog producers indicates their plans for penning sows
will fall short of the retailers’ commitments.
Plain notes that a survey of hog operations with more than
1,000 sows revealed that only 17 per cent have loose housing. And he notes that
may be for only some, not all, of their sows.
And the same survey indicates that the percentage who will
be penning sows two years from now is only 23.
Plain said one of the implications is that retailers who
want pork from farms that don’t pen sows in stalls or crates during gestation
will need to establish a verification system.
“That
is something that's really not much of anything happening on,” Plain said in a
recent interview with Farmscape.
“We
find that a number of firms are implementing some open pen gestation but
there's really not a tracking verification system in place to make sure that
consumers are getting what some retailers are saying they're going to deliver,”
he said.
“It's
not good for retailers or for producers if we confuse customers or promise
things that can't yet deliver,” he said.
