The owner of an intensive piggery featured on a current affairs programme at the weekend has been named as former New Zealand Pork Industry Board chairman Colin Kay.
Save Animals from Exploitation (SAFE) said the Levin farm had previously been investigated and found to be acting within the law.
TVNZ's Sunday programme aired footage by animal welfare organisation Open Rescue, who were accompanied by comedian Mike King during a break-in at the pig farm.
King, a long-standing front man for a campaign advertising pork, said he was deeply ashamed of his role in promoting that type of farming.
The pigs were unable to move and obviously in distress, chewing at the cage bars and frothing, he said.
However, SAFE campaign director Hans Kriek said he expected a MAF investigation to find the piggery was acting within the law.
"This farm has previously been investigated by MAF, who found nothing in breach of the law. The farm is disgusting but appears to be operating within the law, so we doubt if MAF will find anything different this time." Mr Kriek said Mr Kay, who has been working in pig production since 1985, owned five intensive piggeries worth an estimated $4 million.
The Feilding farmer has previously spoken about his love for pigs and the importance of animal welfare.
Speaking with Rural Delivery in 2006, Mr Kay said he did not view animal welfare as an obstacle, rather good animal care would contribute to productivity in the long term, he said.
Mr Kay said he looked to the welfare codes in Europe and incorporated them into his building designs.
"They are certainly more advanced than the requirements of New Zealand animal welfare code, so hopefully we will be able to farm for many years without having to make any changes." In an interview with New Zealand Farmers Weekly in February, Mr Kay said it took a special kind of person, one who must first and foremost love animals, to work with pigs.
"It takes about a month to sort out whether someone is cut out for it or not and invariably it emerges they are animal lovers," he said.
SAFE responded to comments made by the New Zealand Pork Industry Board chairman Chris Trengrove on TVNZ's Close Up yesterday, saying it was surprised to hear him denying ever seeing similar conditions on other intensive pig farms with sow stalls.
"Over 22,000 pregnant sows live in sow stalls in New Zealand and suffer the same fate as those pigs on the exposed piggery. Other pig farms may look a bit cleaner but the cages are just as small and cruel," Mr Kriek said.
At his post cabinet press conference yesterday, Prime Minister John Key said he found the television footage of intensive pig farming "very, very disturbing".
There was a need for change if that was indicative of a large number of piggeries around New Zealand, he said.
The New Zealand Pork Industry said the pork industry was phasing out long-term use of sow stalls and that the programme did not represent the pork industry as a whole.
The pork industry's board had postponed the annual Bacon of the Year awards in response to the programme.
