Cargill: Sow Crates Gotta Go

Update: We were had. So was everybody else who reported anything resembling "Cargill" and "phasing out crates."

The Pigsite (the Chron link was broken so we fixed it with a link to one of the pork industry's own getting PR-jacked, too).

“The decision is the latest example of a U.S. company putting greater emphasis on animal welfare.” Um … no.

Here’s a PowerPoint presentation that is part of Human/Animal Relationships: Biological and Philosophical Issues, current coursework in the University of Wisconsin’s Zoology department. If they’re right on schedule (and we know they are!), Agricultural Animals & Current Social Issues Part II is next Tuesday’s lecture. You can root up the info on the guest lecturer yourself, it’s too easy, and we’re not doing it for you.

There are a couple of very interesting slides in the presentation, like slides 25–26 for example:

“Selective photography” isn’t really the issue, is it? Animal density relative to housing floor space is. Both pens are dangerously overcrowded and injury-conducive irrespective of the camera angle, zoom level, or cropping.

Most interesting of all, though, is what we think might be a glimpse into the future of “group sow housing” for both Cargill and Smithfield sows:

Five or six to a pen, and way less than a minimum, safe distance for both animal introductions and individual resting areas.

Remember the “landmark decision regarding animal management” and how Smithfield CEO Larry Pope worked “with our customers, who have made their views known on the issue of gestation stalls.” Well, don’t backslap Larry or Cargill’s Dirk Jones, or HSUS, PETA, or anybody just yet over what is essentially an international trade issue. Nobody had megawatts of animal welfare go off in their head and nobody caved to consumer pressure that represents the buying power of the US pork chop market.

But, like deer in headlights, everybody did look long, hard, and just a few short years into the future to find the doors to the EU export market slamming shut. Bottom line: smart business people know who their real customers really are, and they aren’t you. Besides, you're veg by now anyway, right?