Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | Brent Hershey: Help Farmers Farm Humanely

Reposted from: https://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/guest-columns/2024/09/24/pigs-hogs-gestation-crates-nppc-eats-act/stories/202409240033

September 24, 2024

A ges­ta­tion crate is a highly con­tro­ver­sial method of hous­ing sows, con­fin­ing them in a cage four inches wider and 12 inches lon­ger than the sow’s body for months at a time. These sows are un­able to walk or even turn around, en­dur­ing a life of forced im­mo­bi­li­za­tion. They are con­fined to one spot, where only food and wa­ter are pro­vided, leav­ing them un­able to move freely.

Most Amer­i­cans, in­clud­ing my­self and many other peo­ple who raise hogs, be­lieve such treat­ment of an­i­mals is sim­ply wrong.

I’ve never been one for pol­i­tics. My fo­cus has al­ways been on run­ning a hu­mane hog busi­ness, sup­port­ing my fam­ily, and earn­ing an hon­est liv­ing. But re­cent events have com­pelled me to speak out, feel­ing be­trayed by the Na­tional Pork Pro­duc­ers Coun­cil (NPPC), the trade as­so­ci­a­tion that claims to rep­resent farm­ers like me.

NPPC’s web­site boldly de­clares, “Our sole charge is to pro­tect the live­li­hood of pork pro­duc­ers in the U.S.” Yet, I can per­son­ally at­test that this is far from the truth. This is es­pe­cially ev­i­dent in their emo­tional and re­ac­tion­ary sup­port for the EATS Act lan­guage in the House Farm Bill — lan­guage that sup­ports the use of ges­ta­tion crates and pre­vents states from ban­ning them.

No fu­ture

It’s no sur­prise that ev­ery bal­lot mea­sure aimed at ban­ning this prac­tice has passed over­whelm­ingly, across red, blue, and pur­ple states alike. In fact, 12 states, in­clud­ing ma­jor ag­ri­cul­tural states like Mich­i­gan, Ohio, and Col­o­rado, have banned ges­ta­tion crates.

Food com­pa­nies, rec­og­niz­ing their cus­tom­ers’ ab­hor­rence of this prac­tice, have im­ple­mented pur­chas­ing pol­i­cies ban­ning them as well. This isn’t lim­ited to nat­u­ral food stores; ma­jor cor­po­ra­tions like Costco, Kroger, McDon­ald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, and many oth­ers have said no to this type of hous­ing.

There is no fu­ture for ges­ta­tion crates in our in­dus­try. In­stead of ad­her­ing to con­sumer de­mand and help pro­duc­ers tran­si­tion away from this old, out­dated prac­tice of the past, the NPPC is at­tempt­ing to over­turn state laws passed by vot­ers (aka, our cus­tom­ers) and their rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

There are sev­eral se­ri­ous con­cerns with this ap­proach.

First, our in­dus­try em­pha­sizes build­ing trust with con­sum­ers. How can we achieve this when our own trade as­so­ci­a­tion works to over­turn the very mea­sures our cus­tom­ers have asked for?

Second, many pro­duc­ers, in­clud­ing my­self, have in­vested sig­nifi­cantly to change and im­prove how we raise our sows to align with prog­ress and con­sumer sen­ti­ment. If NPPC suc­ceeds in nul­li­fy­ing ges­ta­tion crate laws, it would dev­as­tate farm­ers who have al­ready made these in­vest­ments, al­low­ing larger con­glom­er­ates, in­clud­ing for­eign-owned en­ti­ties, to un­der­cut us in the mar­ket­place and threaten our busi­nesses.

Against the ad­vo­cates

Third, NPPC’s claim that state laws against ges­ta­tion crates, like Cal­i­for­nia’s Prop 12 and Mas­sa­chu­setts’ Ques­tion 3, force pro­duc­ers out­side their bor­ders to change their prac­tices is sim­ply un­true. No one is com­pelled to al­ter their meth­ods to sell to these states — it’s a choice each pro­ducer makes.

Don’t just take my word for it. In a re­cent ar­ti­cle in Iowa’s “The Ga­zette,” Iowa Pork Pro­duc­ers As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Matt Gent said that Cal­i­for­nia’s Prop 12 af­fected the mar­ket in his state, be­cause they didn’t know what ef­fects it would have. Now, he wrote, “there’s been enough pro­duc­tion change to meet Prop 12 de­mand that it re­ally doesn’t af­fect a pro­ducer that doesn’t want to ad­just op­er­a­tions to com­ply with the Cal­i­for­nia law.”

Right now, NPPC is push­ing to over­turn the will of our in­dus­try’s cus­tom­ers, un­der­mine Amer­i­can hog farm­ers who have al­ready changed the way they house their an­i­mals, and threaten our busi­nesses — all while falsely claim­ing pro­duc­ers are be­ing forced to com­ply with laws they can choose to ig­nore.

An irony is NPPC is driv­ing our cus­tom­ers away as they fight this change, ul­ti­mately ed­u­cat­ing more con­sum­ers about the ges­ta­tion crate.

The real rea­son the NPPC is push­ing this is to achieve a sym­bolic “win” against an­i­mal ad­vo­cates. They’ve pushed for the EATS Act, pre­vi­ously known as the Con­gress­man Steve King Amend­ment, af­ter the Iowa Re­pub­li­can, in the last two Farm Bills — and lost.

They’ve fought ev­ery bal­lot mea­sure ban­ning ges­ta­tion crates and lost each time. They sued to over­turn these laws in the Supreme Court and lost again.

Isn’t it time to sup­port farm­ers rather than push­ing for vin­dic­tive leg­is­la­tive ac­tions op­posed by over 200 Dem­o­crat and Re­pub­li­can law­mak­ers alike?

Hu­mane farm­ing

In­stead of pri­or­i­tiz­ing such an un­pop­u­lar mea­sure (and likely los­ing again), NPPC could work with law­mak­ers on leg­is­la­tion pro­vid­ing tax in­cen­tives, loans, and re­im­burse­ments for pro­duc­ers who choose to meet the de­mand for ges­ta­tion crate-free pork.

This type of leg­is­la­tion could unite farm­ers, food com­pa­nies, and hu­mane or­ga­ni­za­tions. It would only af­fect pig farm­ers who opt in.

Hav­ing tried with NPPC, I now ap­peal to law­mak­ers to con­sider my plea. If the NPPC op­poses you, claim­ing they rep­resent farm­ers like me, re­mem­ber my call for help.

Brent Hershey is owner of Hershey Ag in Marietta, PA, and raises 3,000 sows and 78,000 market hogs per year.