Tyson unveils animal-welfare steps

Tyson Foods Inc. is using a camera monitoring system at its poultry plants and has employed specialists to keep watch on all its meat operations in an effort to improve animal welfare.

Tyson has also started a program to assess bird-catching methods on farms, and it’s preparing to begin testing a new process at two of its facilities to render poultry unconscious.

The new programs come after the company’s mid-April hiring of Justin Whitmore as chief sustainability officer. These steps fall in line with the company’s recently implemented strategy to place sustainability at the center of its future operations.

“Ensuring the well being of the animals in our care is a core part of our broader sustainability journey and these initiatives are the latest examples of our leadership in this important area,” Whitmore said in a news release.

The Springdale-based company announced Wednesday that it has rolled out the U.S. meat industry’s largest thirdparty remote video auditing program to 33 poultry plants. Videos are monitored by offsite analysts who provide feedback on how to optimize Tyson’s operations. Through Arrowsight, a technology and analytics provider, Tyson is able to counter bird-handling issues and other problems.

Brent Cox, vice president of corporate outreach with Mercy for Animals, applauded Tyson’s efforts to use thirdparty monitoring systems but said the company still needs to adopt national animal-welfare standards and address animalsuffering issues that stem from Tyson’s standard factory-farming practices.

“It’s a surprise and a disap-

pointment,” Cox said.

Until Tyson is committed to standards set by the Global Animal Partnership, an international animal-welfare certification program, he said, video auditors will be looking for random acts of abuse, not standard practices that could be damaging.

In August, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Health and Safety Administration fined Tyson nearly $263,000 for the unfair treatment of workers at a Texas plant. Investigators cited 15 serious and two repeated workplace safety violations, one of which was an amputation after a worker’s finger became stuck in an unguarded conveyor belt. Investigators also cited high levels of carbon dioxide and peracetic acid, which can cause burns and respiratory illnesses when exposed.

The same month, Tyson fired employees after the company found video footage of poultry farmers mishandling birds on some of its contract farms in Virginia.

Dan Wright, a Scott County poultry producer for Tyson, has worked 27 years for the nation’s largest meat company and attested to the effect of its animal well-being specialists. At the Waldron complex, an “expert comes out with every crew, working to make sure the animals are being handled with respect,” he said.

Tyson has trained nearly 60 full-time specialists and stationed at least one at every processing facility.

While Tyson’s decision to monitor chicken-plant operations and, eventually, on-farm bird catching is good in theory, Wright said, it’s “a little overkill.”

In the past couple of years, Tyson’s hundreds of growers have been accused of three, maybe four, cases of animal abuse, he said. Mostly, Wright’s seen animal abuse come from contractors, not so much from company growers, he said.

“Not all growers are like that, but some unfortunately are.”

Tyson is preparing to implement two controlled-atmosphere stunning projects, a process used to render poultry unconscious by lowering oxygen levels, by the end of this year. This process has grown more popular and has gained support from scientists, veterinarians and animal welfare advocates.

Cox said he supported controlled-atmosphere stunning because it eliminates handling of conscious birds.

Tyson will evaluate the results of the pilot program before implementing it in other facilities.