Cargill Pork recently announced it reached several animal welfare assurance objectives with advancements in the production, handling, transportation and harvest of hogs. The goals met are:
- A policy stipulating the purchase of hogs only from farms certified under the National Pork Producers Council’s Pork Quality Assurance Plus program.
- Cargill Pork’s live production business completed PQA + certification site assessments for all 450 farms where it has production contracts.
- Fifty percent of its contract farms are using group sow housing rather than traditional gestation stalls for pregnant sows.
- Use of the Transportation Quality Assurance policy that only truck drivers certified in humane handling of livestock are allowed to deliver animals to the company’s plants.
- Having 20 of its plant animal handling personnel trained and certified by the Professional Animal Auditor Certification Organization.
- All company plant employees handling livestock receive specialized training in humane animal handling.
- The use of video monitoring in plants.
- A trucker recognition program highlighting livestock haulers for individual performance in the proper handling of hogs.
- An animal rescue program to respond to emergencies during transportation.