There are about 1.3 million sows today producing 27 million hogs per year. Of that, probably 1.1 million would be housed through their production cycle, the maternity part, in gestation stalls. The part being questioned today is whether we can continue that practice into the future.
I actually chair the pig code committee that is looking at how we treat this in terms of animal welfare going forward. It's quite a complicated question, actually. There's no really simple answer, but we're trying to create the balance between what the public wants, what the producers can deliver, and what we can do while keeping our producers viable and in business.
We are developing a uniquely Canadian code. It will likely be quite different from the European or American ones. At the end of the day, we think we will have something we can be proud of. The code process is under way today. We think we'll have something finalized by the middle of next year.
If there ends up being a large transformation for our breeding herd from one style of housing to another, our producers are asking whether there is something the federal government or other levels of government can do to support the transformation.