Putting sows in a gestation crate doesn't have a damn thing to do with sows fighting or with how much or little they eat.
They are put in the crate to keep the sow from laying on her pigs when they are born, and that is the only reason.
The sows are only put in the crates a couple days before giving birth and are in them for only a short time.
Without crates half or more of the baby pigs will be crushed by their mother when she lays down.
Before you get your snout out of joint, please realize that the article was addressing sow stalls, not gestation crates:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestation_crate
They are talking about gestation stalls not farrowing stalls. I believe they still go into the farrowing stalls when pigging time comes. We always used farrowing stalls as well for both pig and sow safety but didn’t use the gestation stalls to keep sows year roung other than breeding.