Source: Anna Flavia Rochas, MEATINGPLACE, 6/10/15


Brazil's JBS SA is going to abandon gestation crates in its own facilities and only use collective housing for breeding sows by 2016, a company spokesperson confirmed for Meatingplace on Tuesday. The commitment was initially signaled in JBS's latest sustainability report, published last week.

“JBS will invest in the adaptation of all their own farms by 2016, and will continue to support its partners to enable changes to the collective housing of gestation sows,” a company spokesperson told Meatingplace.

The company did not provide a timeframe for its suppliers to stop using gestation crates as well.

As Brazil's second-largest pork producer, JBS said its subsidiary Seara has been investing in new projects and in adaptations to increase production through collective housing. Today, more than 40 percent of its supply chain is compliant with this model.
BRF, Brazil’s largest pork processor, had already announced in November 2014 that it is going to phase out the use of gestation crates within 12 years. The gestation crate system, however, is still prevalent in Brazil.

Examples of companies already adopting the system include Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest swine producer, as well as Hormel, Cargill and Maple Leaf Foods.

The European Union, Canada and nine U.S. states have already banned the use of gestation crates, which will also be phased out in New Zealand by 2015, and in Australia by 2017.

The director of the Brazilian Pork Producers Association, Nilo de Sá, told Meatingplace that pork producers in Brazil need to have access to more credit lines to be able to implement collective housing for breeding sows. The investment in modern automative collective housing systems can be large for a producer in the beginning, but could also result in reduction of operating costs in the future.

“It is not impossible (to invest in collective housing systems). It's a little more expensive in the beginning, but there is an expectation of it even reducing operating costs in the future,” he said.

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