World’s Largest Meat Producer to Eliminate Gestation Crates

The largest meat-producing company in the world, Brazilian-based JBS, has pledged to eliminate gestation crates from all of its facilities by 2016. Announced this week by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), gestation crates confine pregnant pigs to enclosures that are only slightly larger than their bodies … resulting in severe physical and mental health problems for the sows. Six months ago, BRF—Brazil’s largest pork producer—agreed to phase out gestation crates, while The Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, and Food Supply has been encouraging pork suppliers to do the same. JBS now joins a list of more than 60 multi-national food companies that have agreed to eradicate gestation creates from their suppliers.