Farmers, activists, investors fight over treatment of pregnant pigs

In West Liberty, Iowa, Mike Deahr houses his 3,000 breeding pigs in small enclosures that keep them from turning around and interacting with others for the first 28 days of their 115-day pregnancy.

Whether those enclosures represent the best way to safeguard hogs’ health or the mistreatment of vulnerable animals is at the center of a debate over how pigs in the $43 billion U.S. pork industry are housed.

The state of California, animal-welfare groups like the Humane Society of the United States and billionaire investor Carl Icahn are pressing fast-food giants like McDonald’s Corp., meatpacking companies and hog farmers like Mr. Deahr to provide pregnant hogs more space.

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Animal-welfare proponents say the crates confine sows to the degree that they can barely turn around or walk.

"All they can do is stand on a hard, bare floor, eat and lay down in place," said Maisie Ganzler, chief strategy and brand officer for Bon Appétit Management Co. Ms. Ganzler, one of Mr. Icahn’s two nominees to McDonald’s board in his proxy contest, said switching to pork raised outside of crates recently increased costs for her institutional catering company, but the move aligned with what her customers wanted.

Pork producers and suppliers are resisting, saying such moves would raise meat prices by causing farmers to spend millions of dollars changing their operations, create supply-chain chaos and risk their pigs’ health.

Sows are aggressive animals, said Mike Paustian, a sixth-generation farmer just off Interstate 80 in Walcott, Iowa. The stalls prevent them from fighting each other and stop larger sows from stealing food from smaller ones. They can also prevent accidents if a worker gets between two fighting pigs, he said.

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"Farmers have tried different ways of housing them over the years. Individual gestation stalls allow you to do a better job of monitoring individual sows," said Mr. Paustian, who sells his pigs to Tyson Foods Inc. and Smithfield Foods Inc.

About 30 miles west, Mr. Deahr sells his pigs to Tyson Foods, but another large meatpacker approached him recently with an offer to pay him an $8-a-pig premium to not use gestation crates, he said. While it is a good offer, Mr. Deahr said he can’t accept it because of his own animal-welfare concerns. The stalls are needed to protect the sows for at least the six days when they are at their most aggressive, he said.

"It’s my oath to take care of these animals," he said. "That won’t change for any amount of money."

A California law passed by voters in 2018 and backed by the Humane Society is prompting change among some farmers. The law, called Proposition 12, requires breeding pigs to be able to lie down and turn around in spaces in which they are housed, essentially outlawing pork produced using small gestation stalls in most circumstances. Under the measure, Mr. Paustian’s pigs couldn’t go to market in the nation’s most populous state.

Supermarkets and restaurants found in violation of the law could be punished with fines of up to $1,000 or as many as 180 days in jail, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture. A recent order by a California state judge delayed the application of the law on California retailers until six months after state officials draft regulations, which aren’t currently in place for implementing the law that went into effect Jan. 1. California’s law has been met with opposition from the meat industry, groceries and other food retailers since it was passed by voters in 2018.

The National Pork Producers Council, a Washington-based lobbying group representing hog farmers, filed a lawsuit in June 2020 in federal appeals court in San Francisco saying California can’t regulate how pigs in other states are bred. The Supreme Court is weighing whether to hear the case.

As advocates and investors like Mr. Icahn ratchet up attention on the issue, hog farmers said they face a choice of whether to spend millions of dollars changing their operations. Only about 7% of U.S. sow housing meets California’s Proposition 12 standards, up from roughly 4% in January 2021, according to agricultural lender Rabobank.

Mr. Paustian said he would need to spend roughly $1 million building a new barn to make the changes sought by activists. Many producers aren’t willing to take that gamble, he said.

Despite rising wholesale pork prices, higher feed, labor and material costs have weighed on hog farmers over the past few months, said Lee Schulz, a livestock economist at Iowa State University. Iowa producers have faced three straight months of unprofitability, according to estimates from Iowa State University.

Getting rid of gestation stalls can make hog farmers less efficient, said Stewart Leeth, chief sustainability officer for Smithfield Foods, the biggest U.S. pork producer. Farmers would have to house fewer hogs in their barns to comply with larger square-footage requirements, he said.

Tyson Foods, which buys hogs from hundreds of independent farmers, said its producers choose their sow housing systems, with a growing number converting from gestation stalls to open-pen gestation, a spokesman said. More than 20% of Tyson’s total pork supply is derived from sows housed in open-pen systems.

Niman Ranch, a pork supplier that doesn’t use gestation stalls, said it can be done without hurting productivity. Chris Oliviero, the general manager at Niman, a unit of poultry processor Perdue Farms Inc., said there has been ample time since companies began pledging to phase out pork raised in stalls a decade ago and the Proposition 12 vote to comply with new breeding rules.

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"I think the industry needs to get behind it," Mr. Oliviero said.

Smithfield Foods, a supplier to McDonald’s, tried to address sow housing in 2007 and spent about $360 million between 2007 and 2018 to construct group housing systems for pregnant sows on all company-owned farms in the U.S. The Humane Society praised Smithfield’s plan at the time, Mr. Leeth said. The company, owned by Hong Kong-based pork conglomerate WH Group Ltd., still uses gestation crates for its pigs for the first few weeks of pregnancy, but activists are now criticizing the 2007 plan, said Mr. Leeth.

"It does seem like the goal posts were moved," he said.

This article originally appeared in The Wall Street Journal