Federated Farmers supports a large shipment of New Zealand sheep and cattle bound for Mexico, saying it is "confident" the animals will be transported humanely.
News broke yesterday that a shipment of New Zealand sheep and cattle was on its way to Mexico, sparking concern from animal welfare organisations.
The largest cargo of animals to leave New Zealand - including 50,000 sheep and 3000 cattle - was loaded onto livestock carrier Nada in Timaru yesterday afternoon, and will leave for Mexico later today.
The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) approved the export for breeding purposes, but Safe for Animals executive director Hans Kriek said the alleged reason was questionable.
The export of live animals for slaughter has been banned in New Zealand since 2003 when 5000 sheep died on an Australian shipment bound for Saudi Arabia.
"We would question whether the animals really are going for breeding purposes as it is an extremely large shipment," Mr Kriek said today. "Even if that is the case these animals are going to suffer and hundreds will likely die."
Mr Kriek said conditions on board meant many sheep would end up sick or starving to death and his organisation was also concerned about their eventual slaughter.
However, Prime Minister John Key said strict animal welfare conditions were in place, Radio New Zealand reported this morning.
"The Mexicans have had a huge drought, and so lots of their breeding stock was wiped out, so they have asked us to send these sheep.
"It is kind of a bit of a win-win, because they are coming from parts of the South Island where there have been droughts and so the farmers have been keen to sell those sheep," Mr Key said.
Mr Key said the sheep had to meet all of the conditions outlined by MPI, welfare standards had to be met, and there was a veterinarian on board, who would travel with the sheep for the duration of the journey.
'Excellent opportunity'
Federated Farmers' meat and fibre chairman reassured the public that all sheep and cattle on board would be treated humanely. Rick Powdrell told Radio New Zealand it was an excellent opportunity for New Zealand to help Mexico out.
"We are well aware of the droughts through the American area, you only need to look in America at their cattle herd at the moment they are very low, and Mexico has had the same issues.
"If they need to be re-building their stock, and at the moment we have many farmers in Canterbury who are very happy to take up this opportunity to help themselves ease their situation and help the Mexicans out."
He would not comment as to how many sheep could potentially die on the journey, or how much space the animals would have to graze on the ship.
"We have got to be really careful about getting emotive about the welfare of these animals. I'm quite confident that these sheep can be freighted to Mexico humanely.
"These sheep aren't just taken from a paddock and put on a ship, these sheep have been collected through a quarantine process, they've put through a transition to the feed that they're going to be eating while they're on the ship.
"We can't say there won't be any deaths... we've just got to get away from this talk about wholesale large numbers of animal perishing on this ship."
Labour and Greens concerned
The Labour Party's primary industries spokesman said that he was concerned with the apparent secrecy around the shipment, and it raised more questions than there were answers.
Damien O'Connor said the industry would be asking whether the deal was part of a wider strategy to benefit New Zealand, or if it was simply supplying another country with valuable stock and genetics for short-term gain.
Green Party co-leader James Shaw said the 50,000 sheep revelation highlighted "massive inconsistencies" in the Government's live animal export policy.
It was impossible for the Government to verify no sheep were slaughtered on arrival and not all 50,000 would be looked after humanely during the trip, Mr Shaw said.
"The Government is skirting our ban on live animal exports for slaughter by sending sheep and then wilfully ignoring what happens to the sheep when they disembark. We need to stop this joke of a trade and foreign policy."
- NZME and the New Zealand Herald