Rick Bergmann, vice-president of the Canadian Pork Council,
says more research ought to be done on the comparative welfare of sows housed
in gestation crates or alternatives rather than adopting the proposed code of
practice.
Save your breath, Bergmann. The fight is lost to retailers and Olymel who have already announced deadlines for when they will no longer buy from farms that use gestation crates.
Bergmann says 70 per cent of Canada’s hog and pork
production is exported and those countries aren’t requiring bans on stalls to
house sows during pregnancy. However, he failed to mention the success the Humane Society of the United States has had in persuading most of the big restaurant chains in the U.S. to set deadlines for refusing to buy pork from hogs where sows are housed in gestation crates.
Bergmann says “there's a condition for the whole code of practice
process that changes should not put farmers out of business and create economic
hardship.”
That's fine for the code, but it hasn't stopped the retailers from announcing their bans.
This is not a battle over what's best for hog farmers, but a Humane Society of the United States tactic to enlist retailers in its battle against modern livestock and poultry farming practices. The farmers have lost this one.
Now, brace for round two about how sows beat up on each other.
