Thousands of submissions have been received on the draft National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee (NAWAC) animal welfare code for pigs released for public consultation.
The pork industry says the proposed changes could force farmers out of business and put the price of New Zealand-born and raised pork out of the reach of many New Zealanders.
For the past 35 years, Mid Canterbury pig farmer Ian Carter has “loved feeding the population”.
He has spent the past 19 years running his 2200 pig farrow-to-finish indoor farm, producing enough pork to feed 20,000 New Zealanders a year.
“I do enjoy doing it because I think they, the consumers, value what I do, but it’s not them that set the rules,” he said.
For Carter believed freedom of speech had gone too far, with modern technology meaning momentum could be gained to put across views not necessarily logical or appropriate.
Carter believed a proposal to dramatically change pig farming would result in poor animal welfare outcomes, including the deaths of “thousands” of piglets, and force more farmers to exit an already beleaguered industry.
Pig farming in New Zealand is a small industry which feeds solely New Zealanders and that was part of the problem, he said.
With only 90 commercial pig farms left, and because it did not export, the industry had “no voice” in Wellington.
For years, much noise had been made about the amount of imported pork - about 64 per cent of New Zealand consumption.
While there was talk of the need for a level playing field that was not possible - the draft code was above any imports, meaning none of the imported pork met the same regulations as its New Zealand counterparts.
Carter believed the proposal would “destroy” the production side of New Zealand’s industry while the processing side would “just run on imported meat”.
The Carter farm employed three full-time staff, who all had families and were part of the local community.
Without the piggery the property – 750 bull beef were also grazed – it would take one person to run it.
Carter said free-farmed pork did not necessarily mean better animal welfare, and there had been a “decimation” in numbers in that sector over the past 10 years.
He had questioned the capabilities of the NAWAC committee to develop a code suitable for the industry, saying he believed the process was broken, so a “poor outcome” was inevitable.
“To put up a list of options for the public to largely decide, further demonstrates the complexity of the situation, that a solution isn’t clearly evident for NAWAC.
“For the good of our pigs, public perception of welfare shouldn’t be allowed to override science-proven welfare,” he said.

• By Pat Deavoll