Sinergia estimates that this commitment has helped over 1,000,000 piglets per year since 2023. Sinergia cites a source for their estimate, but the source states PPA slaughters only 750,000 pigs per year.[1] This makes it questionable if PPA even has 1,000,000 piglets that could be teeth clipped each year.
I think there might be a misunderstanding in the analysis regarding the number of piglets and the slaughter figures. A 25% pre-slaughter mortality rate is quite common in pig farming. [E.g. Pre-weaning piglet mortality varies largely between farms and ranges from 5 % to 35 %. European Parliament, The EU Pig Meat Sector, Sep 2020] This means it’s entirely possible that 1,000,000 piglets are born each year, and 25% (250,000) die before reaching slaughter age, leaving 750,000 to be slaughtered.
Therefore, Sinergia’s estimate that 1,000,000 piglets per year benefit from teeth clipping could still be accurate. The 1,000,000 figure likely refers to the total number of piglets born, all of whom could potentially have their teeth clipped, rather than the number that survive to slaughter.
Thank you for your response Johannes! We really appreciate it when people take the time to read our analysis, and question specific points. We encourage everyone to do the same.
I think there might be a misunderstanding in the analysis regarding the number of piglets and the slaughter figures. A 25% pre-slaughter mortality rate is quite common in pig farming.
We actually did account for pre-slaughter mortality rates in our analysis, but we used data specific to Brazil since that is where PPA is located. According to the study Swine Mortality and Productivity in Brazil – Benchmarks and Nutritional Solutions, the average pre-weaning mortality percentage is 8.91%, and the average growing-finishing mortality percentage is 3%.
This means it’s entirely possible that 1,000,000 piglets are born each year, and 25% (250,000) die before reaching slaughter age, leaving 750,000 to be slaughtered.
We acknowledge it is possible over 1,000,000 piglets could be teeth clipped each year at PPA. However, based on the available data, we think it is questionable (as we stated above).
Our main point in bringing up the slaughter numbers was to show that Sinergia’s estimate for the alleged commitment’s impact appears to rely on the assumption that without this commitment, PPA would have immediately started using teeth clipping on 100% of their piglets, but that with the commitment they will use teeth clipping on 0% of their piglets. This seems implausible given that PPA had already stated they don’t use teeth clipping prior to the alleged commitment, and teeth clipping was already illegal in Brazil prior to the alleged commitment.
We’d also like to note that there are cases where Sinergia’s estimates are likely more than 100% of the pigs that could be affected. In the JBS example we used in our article, Sinergia estimates that a commitment to not use gestation crates in new projects impacts 290,000 sows per year (see Cell L10). To justify this, Sinergia cites Alianima’s 2023 report, which states JBS has total 290,000 sows (see Cell P10). However, it seems very unlikely that JBS has 290,000 sows that are a part of new projects. We also checked the Alianima’s 2024 report, and it states JBS has 297,000 sows. This leads us to believe JBS is starting new projects at a much lower rate than Sinergia estimated.
With that being said, as we noted in our review, “the gestation crate policy that the alleged commitment references was already listed on JBS’s website in 2020, and has been in effect since that point.” In spite of this, Sinergia claims that JBS published a commitment for this in 2023 with a “Transition deadline” of 2023 (see Row 10).
We can provide other examples of estimates from Sinergia that we suspect are inflated if you’d like. The critique we published contains only a small fraction of our full analysis, because brevity is a top priority in our reviews.
Regarding this point:
I think there might be a misunderstanding in the analysis regarding the number of piglets and the slaughter figures. A 25% pre-slaughter mortality rate is quite common in pig farming. [E.g. Pre-weaning piglet mortality varies largely between farms and ranges from 5 % to 35 %. European Parliament, The EU Pig Meat Sector, Sep 2020] This means it’s entirely possible that 1,000,000 piglets are born each year, and 25% (250,000) die before reaching slaughter age, leaving 750,000 to be slaughtered.
Therefore, Sinergia’s estimate that 1,000,000 piglets per year benefit from teeth clipping could still be accurate. The 1,000,000 figure likely refers to the total number of piglets born, all of whom could potentially have their teeth clipped, rather than the number that survive to slaughter.
Thank you for your response Johannes! We really appreciate it when people take the time to read our analysis, and question specific points. We encourage everyone to do the same.
We actually did account for pre-slaughter mortality rates in our analysis, but we used data specific to Brazil since that is where PPA is located. According to the study Swine Mortality and Productivity in Brazil – Benchmarks and Nutritional Solutions, the average pre-weaning mortality percentage is 8.91%, and the average growing-finishing mortality percentage is 3%.
We acknowledge it is possible over 1,000,000 piglets could be teeth clipped each year at PPA. However, based on the available data, we think it is questionable (as we stated above).
Our main point in bringing up the slaughter numbers was to show that Sinergia’s estimate for the alleged commitment’s impact appears to rely on the assumption that without this commitment, PPA would have immediately started using teeth clipping on 100% of their piglets, but that with the commitment they will use teeth clipping on 0% of their piglets. This seems implausible given that PPA had already stated they don’t use teeth clipping prior to the alleged commitment, and teeth clipping was already illegal in Brazil prior to the alleged commitment.
We’d also like to note that there are cases where Sinergia’s estimates are likely more than 100% of the pigs that could be affected. In the JBS example we used in our article, Sinergia estimates that a commitment to not use gestation crates in new projects impacts 290,000 sows per year (see Cell L10). To justify this, Sinergia cites Alianima’s 2023 report, which states JBS has total 290,000 sows (see Cell P10). However, it seems very unlikely that JBS has 290,000 sows that are a part of new projects. We also checked the Alianima’s 2024 report, and it states JBS has 297,000 sows. This leads us to believe JBS is starting new projects at a much lower rate than Sinergia estimated.
With that being said, as we noted in our review, “the gestation crate policy that the alleged commitment references was already listed on JBS’s website in 2020, and has been in effect since that point.” In spite of this, Sinergia claims that JBS published a commitment for this in 2023 with a “Transition deadline” of 2023 (see Row 10).
We can provide other examples of estimates from Sinergia that we suspect are inflated if you’d like. The critique we published contains only a small fraction of our full analysis, because brevity is a top priority in our reviews.
Thanks for the clarification!