Pig-farm video used to sway Tyson

The Humane Society of the United States is using video footage taken surreptitiously at a Wyoming pig farm documenting cruel and inhumane treatment of the animals, including their confinement in small gestation crates, to pressure Tyson Foods of Springdale to eliminate the practice.

Josh Balk, corporate policy director for farm animal protection for the Human Society, said at a news conference Tuesday in Little Rock that much of the food industry is moving to phase out gestation crates, but Tyson “refuses to move on this severe issue of cruelty to animals.”

On its website, Tyson says it doesn’t sell any pork from the Wyoming farm to the public. The company acknowledges that it owns a business that buys aged sows, but those animals are sold to other companies. The company was appalled by the video, the statement said.

Balk noted that Mcdonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s restaurants have pledged to eliminate gestation crates from its pork supply chains. Smithfield Foods, the nation’s largest pork producer, has said it has begun a process that will lead to elimination of gestation crates by 2017.