Europeans gear up for sow stall ban

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

The Brits are bragging that their urging on of other European Union countries to comply with a Jan. 1, 2013 ban on sow crates is apparently having some effect.

Earlier in the year, just three member states were in compliance and 12 others were unable to confirm that they could comply by January of next year. Now nine countries expect to have at least 93 per cent compliance by the end of the year. The ban has loomed for nearly a decade.

The United Kingdom outlawed gestation stalls in 1999 and the industry was reduced by 40 per cent, with many producers unable to compete with cheaper imports.

European pork production is expected to decrease by five to 10 per cent and prices will increase. The 27 countries in the European Union (EU) had 12,645,000 sows at the end of 2011, down three per cent from a year before, according to a report written by BPEX, Britain's pork producer lobby group.

The rapid conversion to sow stalls that is expected (or maybe it is producers dropping out) may have been fuelled in part by the EU's tough action against egg-laying operations that didn't conform to a parallel ban on battery cages. BP