Nicholas Kristof’s Feb. 5 New York Times op-ed, “Spy Cams Show What the Pork Industry Tries to Hide,” is sure to attract scathing animal activist comment and probably a few defensive ones from the pork industry. The article, referenced here, is graphic and gut wrenching to watch. Kristof, as you might know, is twice a winner of a Pulitzer Prize, a recent candidate to be Oregon’s governor, Oxford and Harvard educated, yet well-grounded having grown up on a farm near the small rural, agrarian community of Yamhill, Ore.

Kristof’s article is an exposé of a Smithfield pork plant slaughter process he wrote after viewing a video captured by an animal activist who snuck into the facility and planted cameras to record the hog stunning method. If you watch the video, it is hard to justify this controlled atmosphere stunning (CAS) practice. The hogs are crowded into a stunning enclosure, which is then filled with carbon dioxide to render them unconscious. But, they are not immediately desensitized and are able to move and shove one another as each seems to drop off to sleep while some remain active, pushing against others until all are quiet. Inducing this “sleeping state” seems to take 20 to 45 seconds, and in that length of time some of the hogs are flopping around in the stunning box and appear to be conscious.

Such a CAS stunning process may be better than the old electric shock method and certainly a step up from from Upton Sinclair’s “hog knocker” wading through a pen of live hogs flailing away while being hit with a sledgehammer, as implied in Sinclair's 1905 novel, The Jungle. But the video depicts a CAS method that is both graphically inhumane and sure to invite inflammatory comment from animal activists, and possibly from current and prospective pork consumers. There has got to be a better way.

Unfortunately, Smithfield chose to respond to the video only by saying that the process meets all USDA regulations and is approved by the American Veterinary Medical Association. And, it may. Wouldn’t it have been better, however, to couple that response with understanding of the graphic nature of the depicted CAS method while pledging to seek out more humane methods and justifiably decrying the surreptitious method of the video capture?

To refer to the respected animal veterinarian and architect of so many humane animal handling systems, Temple Grandin, as a means of defense is disingenuous by Smithfield. To address developing different breeds, as Temple Grandin suggests and is prevalent in Europe, is no small nor quick means to finding an alternative more humane stunning method. To change the breeds would be an arduous and expensive process, but probably one that the industry and college ag schools should undertake. The gestation time for a hog is 3 months, 3 weeks and 3 days, so imagine the number of generational hog iterations and time it would take to change a breed and test its CAS stunning response.

As a meat industry stalwart, Smithfield must be responsible for developing a better method of desensitizing live animals prior to slaughter. However, Smithfield, along with the other pork big boys, don’t seem to want to spend the time, effort or money to change — as evidenced by the video and their comments. Unless forced, which will only come as a result of consumer pressure. I predict that the video and resultant brouhaha may cause change to happen, or a decrease in pork demand may occur until the video fades from the memories of consumers. Or, better yet, the industry responds with a solution.

Is Controlled Atmosphere Stunning the Best We Can Do?

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