Canada’s second-largest pork producer says it will phase out the use of pig gestation crates – small metal stalls that confine the animals for much of their lives – and is urging others in the industry to follow suit.
Columbia Road Flower Market - London, UK, 2012
Olymel, a Quebec-based meat packer, has announced it will phase out the use of crates for pregnant sows in its breeding facilities by 2022, saying the decision was “inevitable” after bans on the controversial crates in some US states and the European Union, with more countries expected to follow.
In addition, the company’s customers are demanding it, said Olymel spokesman Richard Vigneault.
Pig gestation crates, barely larger than the animal’s body, are widely used in Canada. Currently about 1.4 million breeding sows on farms across the country are confined in the crates. Sows are often kept in the crates from the age of seven months, when they begin a continuous cycle of impregnation and birth
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