Ontario pork producers vote to keep sow stalls
Last month at Ontario pork’s annual general meeting (AGM), delegates voted to continue using sow stalls until it is proven that there is a better welfare system, according to Better Farming/AgMedia.
Delegates at AGM voted vote was 45 to 18 to keep sow stalls saying that until “it is proven through proper documented research that there is another system that will provide better welfare.”
Amy Cronin, Ontario Pork chair said of the result: “It’s what I expected.” Adding that she didn’t believe it was an out and out rejection of loose housing, attitudes have definitely changed but producers have reservations.
At the beginning of March the new Canadian national Code of Practice for the Care and Handling of Pigs was released. It calls for barns to be built after July 01, to enable loose housing systems for gestating sows and for stalls to be phased out of existing housing by 2014.
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