Question

For the sake of effi ciency and lower costs, Premium Standard Farms of Princeton, Missouri, has turned pig production into a standardized product-focused process. Slaughterhouses have done this for a hundred years—but after the animal was dead. Doing it while the animal is alive is a relatively recent innovation. Here is how it works. Impregnated female sows wait for 40 days in metal stalls so small that they cannot turn around. After an ultrasound test, they wait 67 days in a similar stall until they give birth. Two weeks after delivering 10 or 11 piglets, the sows are moved back to breeding rooms for another cycle. After 3 years, the sow is slaughtered. Animal-welfare advocates say such confi nement drives pigs crazy. Premium Standard replies that its hogs are in fact comfortable, arguing that only 1% die before Premium Standard wants them to and that their system helps reduce the cost of pork products. Discuss the productivity and ethical implications of this industry and these two divergent opinions.

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Answer 1

Productivity is measured by the output produced with the amount of inputs used in the production process. No doubt the productivity increases by this process if followed properly and completely. A standardized process reduces human efforts and increases the outputs with properly operated and functional process. However, the argument of the animal-welfare advocates is on the treatment of pigs during the process which is somewhere related to ethical issues. The world has been putting human needs and wants on priority and then considers the environmental and ethical issues. According to the advocates the confinement is not good for pigs; however, in the end the animal is going to be slaughtered and taking advantage of their breeding capacities is not an ethical issue. It is like producing more pigs to be slaughtered in future but within the process. As far as the confinement is concerned, as stated only 1% of the pigs die, which means the pigs are quite comfortable within the process. The bottom line is that the process is only serving the human demands and until other ethical alternatives are available the process is going to be continued. It is a question though whether this is good in the long run and whether it is our responsibility as humans to search for ethical alternatives.