DAKOTA DUNES, South Dakota, January 9 – Earlier this week the country’s largest pork producer and processor, Smithfield Foods, told its contract sow growers their contracts would be extended if, by 2022, they had converted from gestation crates to group housing.
Now the second-largest pork processor on the planet, Tyson Foods, has announced that its suppliers should step away from standard industry practices like gestation crates.
In a letter to its pork producers out Thursday, Tyson explained that as part of its FarmCheck? animal well-being program, it intends to increase audits on third-party sow farms in 2014.
Other key takeaways include:
Video monitoring: Citing a belief that video monitoring helps improve human behavior and animal handling in its packing plants, Tyson is requesting contract farmers managing Tyson-owned sows to install video-monitoring systems by the end of the year.
Manual blunt force trauma: Also by year’s end, Tyson is requiring its contract growers to abandon the use of blunt force euthanasia for sick or injured piglets, and instead suggests they adopt an alternative method consistent with recommendations in the most current edition of the American Veterinary Medical Association’s “Guidelines for the Euthanasia of Animals.”
In the 2013 edition of “Guidelines for the Euthanasia of Animals,” the AVMA suggests the following for nursery pigs in the range of 70 lbs or lighter:
Nursery pigs may be euthanized by use of CO, CO2, gunshot, penetrating captive bolt, purpose-built nonpenetrating captive bolt, electrocution, or anesthetic overdose.
For suckling pigs, the AVMA suggests the following:
Options for the euthanasia of suckling pigs include CO2; Ar, N2 and CO2 mixtures; CO; inhaled anesthetics, purpose-built nonpenetrating captive bolt; electrocution (for pigs over 10 lb); anesthetic overdose; and blunt force trauma.
The AVMA elaborates on its position with regard to manual blunt force trauma later in the description of the practice:
[Manually applied blunt force trauma] is less aesthetically acceptable than other alternatives, but when properly performed, death is rapid. Uncertainty of success often causes repeated application or selection of an alternative euthanasia method. The AVMA encourages those using manually applied blunt force trauma to the head as a euthanasia method to actively search for alternatives to ensure that criteria for euthanasia can be consistently met.
Pain mitigation: Tyson also encourages its contract growers to use pain mitigation methods for both tail docking and castration. While it acknowledges that more research on pain mitigation methods is necessary, Tyson says producers may fund use with anesthetics and analgesics approved for use in pigs or which are permissible under the Animal Medicinal Drug Use Clarification Act (AMDUCA).
The AMDUCA allows veterinarians to exercise professional judgment in using FDA-approved drugs for “extra-label use,” defined as:
Actual use or intended use of a drug in an animal in a manner that is not in accordance with the approved labeling. This includes, but is not limited to, use in species not listed in the labeling, use for indications (disease and other conditions) not listed in the labeling, use at dosage levels, frequencies, or routes of administration other than those stated in the labeling, and deviation from labeled withdrawal time based on these different uses.
The AMDUCA also limits such extra-label uses to instances in which an animal’s health is threatened, or in which suffering or death could result from a failure to treat the animal.
After the release of Tyson’s letter, the National Pork Board released a statement stressing that management decisions should be based on the needs of the individual swine operation. The National Pork Board also noted that no approved drug for pain mitigation exists for swine, stating:
Currently there are no approved drugs for the use of pain mitigation in pig farming. We strongly encourage pig farmers to work with their herd veterinarian to explore options to comply with Tyson’s recommendation and to ensure all federal drug-use regulations are met appropriately under the Animal Medicinal Drug Use Clarification Act.
The statement also de-emphasized the importance that Tyson gave to video monitoring:
Video monitoring can be a useful tool in auditing animal welfare on U.S. pig farms. However, video monitoring, like in-person auditing, is only one component of providing and ensuring good animal care and can add significant cost to the farmer. Auditing and monitoring should be balanced with a comprehensive approach to animal welfare that includes caretaker training to positively affect human-animal interaction.
“We view this, really, as a first step in the right direction,” says Humane Society of the United States Food Policy Director Matt Prescott, “and all steps on the path toward a more humane way of conducting business, in our view, are positive steps.”
With Smithfield Foods’ announcement earlier in the week incentivizing a firm departure from gestation crates and specifying group housing as the preferred alternative, Tyson’s suggestions may seem somewhat toothless. The letter to Tyson’s contract growers simply requests that new or redesigned gestation barns allow sows of all sizes to stand, turn around, lie down, and stretch their legs. But Prescott says the surrounding suggestions paint a bigger picture.
“I think what we see in this letter is acknowledgment that it’s not just the gestation crate issue that really deserves some attention and maybe needing to change in the near future, but that there are other things going on in pork production and that also warrant some changes in standard production methods.”
Prescott also points out that Tyson’s move comes after two years of pressure from purchasers like McDonald’s and Oscar Mayer. He commends the letter on its straightforward approach to hot-button industry topics.
“Tyson has made many animal welfare announcements and statements and policies over the years, and to be frank, today’s represents, at leas to the Humane Society [of the United States], the strongest of those announcements to date,” Prescott says. “Others have been maybe a little bit more vague and a little bit more general, whereas today’s announcement really tackled some standard production methods for the first time and in a more concrete way than Tyson had ever tackled them before.”
