The National Farm Animal Care Council has delayed the deadline to ban sow crates by five years to 2029.
It said “the physical complexities of adapting various barn designs was severely underestimated. Moreover, the importance of the quality of the space offered to animals might have been underestimated and the quantity of space overestimated.”
The council said it is also concerned about how much it costs to either convert barns or to build new ones.
The council said it decided to ban sow crates for animal welfare reasons, however, animal activists groups managed to persuade a number of the largest companies selling pork or pork-containing fast-food meals to announce their own bans.
