Cargill to end gestation crate use for sows

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story 
Donnelle Eller, deller@dmreg.com 12:21 a.m. CDT June 10, 2014
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Cargill says all the sow barns the Minneapolis-based company owns will move to group housing by year-end 2015, moving away from gestation crates that animal welfare groups have opposed.

The company said contract farms that contain Cargill-owned sows will all transition to group housing by year-end 2017.

Paul Shapiro, a vice president at the Humane Society of the United States, said the move is the right one.

"Cargill's decision brings us closer to the day when gestation crates will be relics of the past in the pork industry," he said. "Americans simply don't support locking animals in cages barely larger than their bodies."

Cargill is one of more than 60 companies that have made similar moves, including McDonald's and Costco, the Humane Society said.

Cargill has no sow farms in Iowa, either owned or under contract, the company said. It does work with up to 360 Iowa farmers to fatten pigs for market after they've been weaned.

About 30 percent of the pigs harvested at Cargill pork processing plants in Ottumwa, Ia., and Beardstown, Ill., come from Cargill-owned sows, the company said.

Half of Cargill's sow operations have maintained group housing over the past several years.

Cargill said it has invested $60 million to buy and modernize a 22,000-acre idled hog farm in Dalhart, Texas, to enable it to move to 100 percent group housing for gestating sows. The company's work includes building sow barns containing group housing and converting existing sow housing from stalls or crates.

Industry leaders have said gestation crates help protect the sows and piglets.

Cargill acknowledged changing customer needs. "While Cargill was a pioneer in the use of group housing for gestating sows dating back more than a decade, in the past few years growing public interest in the welfare related to animals raised for food has been expressed to our customers and the pork industry," said Mike Luker, president of Wichita-based Cargill Pork.

"While an industry change of this magnitude is challenging and costly, we believe it is the right thing to do for the long-term future of pork production in the U.S., and our customers agree with us and support our decision," Luker said.