At the start of the month Associate Minister of Agriculture (Animal Welfare) Andrew Hoggard’s media release headline boldly stated, "Animal Welfare requirements for pig farming to be strengthened".
It went on to say the changes would raise welfare outcomes for pigs in New Zealand while providing farmers appropriate time to make the changes.
Together, these proposed new requirements would be amongst the highest in the world and demonstrate the importance New Zealanders place upon animal welfare, he said.
The trouble is, that is not the way animal welfare organisations who have been fighting against the use of crates for years, and who thought they had made real progress on this, see the changes.
If Mr Hoggard is so sure the changes are worthwhile, it is hard to understand why he did not consult animal welfare groups about them, including the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA), or indeed give the wider public more time to consider the changes.
Instead, the legislation had its first reading on October 7, submissions on it close next Thursday, and the primary production select committee will report back in early February.
It is hard not to be cynical about this process and its timing.
In 2020, the High Court ruled regulations permitting the use of mating stalls and farrowing crates, both of which prevent sows being able to turn around, were unlawful and invalid under the Animal Welfare Act.
Allowing their use did not meet the Act’s obligations to ensure the physical, health and behavioural needs of animals, including the opportunity to display normal patterns of behaviour, it found.
As a result, the previous government agreed to new regulations that permitted the continued use of crates with tighter restrictions and with a five-year phasing out period for the crates, due to end on December 18 this year.
In 2022 there was extensive consultation on the issue and the National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee recommended free farrowing to the government in 2023, ahead of the other option of a short period of confinement within a larger pen after sows had completed nest building.
Any change, however, was caught up in the change of government, and now, after two years, this government wants to solve its legal conundrum by changing the law to allow the industry another 10 years under the existing rules and after that allow crates’ temporary use indefinitely.
Mr Hoggard wants us to believe the whole pig industry would be threatened if the crates were banned but, as the SPCA points out, only about half of farms use them now.
Increasingly, consumers in countries like ours are discerning about the way their food is produced and, where animals are involved in that production, they expect the creatures not to be subjected to unnecessary misery in their shortened lives.
The government could have made a stand by following the lead of countries such as Switzerland, Sweden, and Finland which have banned both permanent and temporary farrowing crates.
To show a real commitment to animal welfare, and local farmers, it could have simultaneously moved toward ensuring imported pork adhered to the same welfare standards.
Keeping it local
Given the reported international interest in the sale of the Cardrona Hotel since it went on the market in July, it was heartening to learn this week its new owners are a group of New Zealand investors.
There had been much interest in the complex, including from the United States, Australia, and Singapore.
The 162-year-old hotel’s frontage is so familiar to all of us, even if we have never been there, it would have felt incongruous for the complex to be owned from afar.
Those who love what the current owners have achieved there in the last 13 years will be pleased the new owners plan to operate the facility as usual with no immediate changes planned affecting staffing or services.
