Ontario Pork Producers Opt for Sow Stalls

March 26, 2014 — 

Delegates to the Ontario commodity organization’s annual meeting in Guelph want proof of better welfare before they adopt another housing system. [Better Farming/AgMedia]

Delegates at Ontario pork’s annual general meeting Wednesday voted 45 to 18 to continue using sow stalls until “it is proven through proper documented research that there is another system that will provide better welfare.”

The resolution submitted by Middlesex Pork Producers Association also called for federal government funding “in the event any initiative is taken to force the industry into a loose housing system.”

Earlier this month, the final version of a new national Code of Practice for the Care and Handling of Pigs was released. It calls for barns built after July 1 to feature loose housing systems for gestating sows and for stalls to be phased out of existing barns by 2024.

"It’s what I expected,” says Amy Cronin, Ontario Pork chair. “I don’t think it is a flat out rejection” of loose housing, she adds, noting that “attitudes have changed” since last year’s meeting. Producers still have “reservations.” She stresses that the pig code is a national initiative; it didn’t come from Ontario Pork.

In her address as chair of the board, Cronin outlined five key priorities producers had for the board

• Twenty-five per cent look to the board to provide leadership in societal and public concerns such as animal welfare.
• Twenty per cent felt that the board needed to focus on antimicrobial resistance.
• Nineteen per cent felt grading should be a board priority and 17 per cent sought leadership in development of a value chain.
• Nineteen per cent identified health status and biosecurity as priorities.

Health status and biosecurity is particularly important in the context of porcine epidemic diarrhoea and the discovery earlier this week of the first Ontario cases of a new disease, called swine delta corona virus. The disease was first identified in the United States in February. In Ontario, the new disease showed up in samples submitted from six farms diagnosed earlier with PED.

As of March 19 there are 34 cases of PEDv in Ontario.