Smithfield Moves Ahead, Asks Contracted Farmers to End Use of Gestation Stalls

Jan 08, 2014

By Amanda Brodhagen, Farms.com

Smithfield Foods, Inc., the world’s largest hog producer and pork processer, announced Tuesday that it is asking its pork suppliers to get rid of gestation stalls and convert to group housing for pregnant sows by 2022.

The company says it plans to provide incentives to encourage conversion, noting that contracted farmers who commit to convert to group housing will receive contract extensions after the conversion is completed.

"We recognize that these projects require a significant investment on the part of our growers," said Larry Pope, president and chief executive officer of Smithfield Foods.

It appears that Smithfield is following through on its commitments. In 2007 they began converting to group housing for all its company-owned U.S. farms. The company remains on track to complete its conversion to group housing by 2017. Smithfield’s operations in Poland and Romania completed its conversions a number of years ago.

In a Jan. 7 press release, Smithfield said that its hog production subsidiary Murphy-Brown had transitioned 54 per cent of pregnant sows on its company-owned farms in the U.S. to group housing systems in 2013.

Last year, Smithfield was bought by China’s Shuanghui International Holdings Ltd. The acquisition was the biggest Chinese purchase of a U.S. firm in history.

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.