MINONK, Ill. — Customers are always considered in the right in European nations when it comes to how their food is produced, even if the practices they demand prove detrimental to producers, animals and, ultimately, themselves.

Pam Janssen, a swine and beef producer from the Woodford County town of Minonk, said that was one of her key takeaways from the recent Illinois Farm Bureau (ILFB) Animal Care Tour. It took her and 10 other Illinois farmers on a 10-day, 12-farm sweep through six European Union (EU) nations to study animal care regulations and issues.

“I just wanted to get a firsthand view of what they do, and how and why they do it when it comes to their animals, and bring that information back to discuss and share with other producers. I wanted to go with an open mind, with no preconceived notions about anything,” said Janssen, who raises about 200 feeder calves and operates a farrow-to-finish hog operation with her husband.

During a visit to the Robert Mitchell farm, located near Coventry, United Kingdom, she toured the Mitchells’ confinement cattle operation and inspected the construction of a new beef cattle facility on the farm. She was struck by the similarities in the Mitchell family’s cattle and grain operation and her own, but noted building permit regulations for farms seem to be a little stricter in England.

Janssen also learned cattle diets in England were a little different than on this side of the pond. “What they feed their livestock is corn – which they refer to as maize – silage with whole potatoes and sugar beet syrup. I didn’t see any DDGs (distillers dried grains),” she reported.

Along with being restricted from administering growth hormones and greatly limiting antibiotics usage in livestock, EU farmers are required to keep more stringent traceability records than their American counterparts, according to Janssen.

“Everything has to be documented. Part of the paperwork goes with the animal, part of it stays at the farm in their inventory records. If you are not in compliance, you are fined. I also understand you cannot take an animal to a local locker (for processing) for your own personal use,” said Janssen, discussing notable variations in animal care regulations and practices she observed during the trip.

The group, which also included four ILFB staff members and one reporter, later toured a concept farm for a supermarket chain in northern England where pigs are kept in open pens.

“I wasn’t real comfortable with that. They had around 50 (hogs) in a pen, bedded with straw. The pigs were somewhat dirty, and there was quite a bit of fighting. Some were scarred up pretty good,” Janssen said.

“These were not small animals. I told my husband that these sows were the size of sows I get rid of because they are too big.”

Open farrowing pens were also standard operating procedure at the concept farm and throughout Europe. “I asked what would happen if you needed to get into those pens and take care of something, and I was told that if you are a good stockman you won’t have any problems. But another farmer told me that when his pigs become (aggressive), he sells them,” said Janssen.

“They do not castrate (swine) at all over there, and they can only dock a pig’s tail at half-length. All reproduction is conducted using artificial insemination.”

Some EU animal care practices are simply not practical for U.S. farmers, such as the use of unheated, open-slatted pole barns for animal housing, Janssen concluded.

“Summers are a lot hotter and winters a lot colder in the U.S. Having the buildings they have there over here would not work,” she said. “As hot as it had been in the U.S. while we were gone, they don’t even have fans in their gestational buildings. It’s a different atmosphere.”

Janssen learned that because most EU farms are not multigenerational in ownership, many European farmers have not had the luxury of learning and passing on time-tested farming practices essential to the success of their operations, unlike their American counterparts. She said this redoubled her faith in American animal agriculture care practices and regulations.

Among the more amusing discoveries Janssen made on the tour was how EU producers are required by law to provide toys such as rubber balls or other approved items for their swine and other animals.

“All animals have to have a toy. If you don’t have them, you get a fine,” she said, half-laughing. “It seems like what they do over there eventually ends up happening here.”

In summary, Janssen said she learned while many EU animal care practices are to be admired and perhaps emulated, she believes not all are applicable or desirable to American livestock producers.

“They are too tightly controlled by regulations and legislation. When we see the things like fighting that goes on in group housing (on EU farms), we are more in favor of a crate system,” she said. “The main thing I learned from over there is that the European consumer strongly dictates how (producers) go about raising their food.”

Tour participants also met with EU Commission officials, members of the British National Farmers Union and National Pig Assoc., USDA Foreign Ag Service staff, U.S. Meat Export Federation and other EU agricultural representatives during the June 24-July 3 tour.