dog food industry

what we found were extraordinarily inhumaneconditions at smithfield foods, the largest pork producer in the entire world. i still remember the first time i ever laideyes on a gestation crate facility and seeing the helplessness of these animals who havedone nothing to deserve the fate that they're enduring, suffering inside of these cratesis just absolutely devastating. the humane society of the united states hasinvestigated one of smithfield's breeding operations. this facility represents what gestation crateconfinement is -- open wounds, pressure sores, infections, bleeding gums from biting thebars so much and these animals aren't even

being cared for with individualized veterinaryattention. regardless of how the system is managed, thesepigs are barely able to move even an inch their entire lives. they're unable to walkaround, to turn around causes them to quite literally go insane. this is one of the reasons why so many animalscientists and veterinarians have condemned this extreme confinement practice. smithfield about i would say two weeks ago,two - three weeks ago, made an announcement that we had made a decision to phase out theuse of sow gestations crates in all of our company owned farms over a 10- year period.

smithfield committed publicly to phasing outgestation crates within a 10-year period, receiving a lot of praise for doing so. nowjust a couple years later the company is saying that they no longer can meet its own verygenerous, self-imposed deadline. that's completely unacceptable. many other pork companies such as let's saymaxwell foods, which is one of the biggest pork producers in the country, is already100 percent gestation crate free. cargill another major pork producer is already 50percent gestation crate free. the american farm bureau, the primary agri-businesslobby in the united states funded a poll in which they found an overwhelming majorityof americans find gestation crates to be inhumane.

this is one of the reasons why seven statesin the country have already banned this practice, why all 27-member nations of the eu [europeanunion] have banned the practice. gestation crates are a practice of the past,not of the future and smithfield outta be speeding up that trend rather than slowingit down.