Pig farmers respond to new welfare standards
Pig farmers are cautiously welcoming new animal welfare standards announced by the Government last week.
However, those staying are getting better production and are more professional in producing pig meat, NZPork chair Ian Carter told Rural News.
The total pig kill in the financial year to September 30, 2014 was 672,108 compared to 681,540 for 2012-2013. But while pig kill is down, pig production has actually increased which shows farms are becoming more productive and pigs are getting bigger. In 2013-2014, 47,646 tonnes were produced compared to 47,201 tonnes the previous year.
Carter says it “isn’t ideal” for an industry to be in a decline but the industry is becoming very specialised. At least 52% of the product now is imported.
“The rest of the world is feeding more New Zealanders with pig meat than the New Zealand farmer is. It is not a trend I am overly happy about.”
Producers in New Zealand now have to have certain scale to be cost effective and meet all the regulations, he says.
“We have fewer producers, but they have also had an increase in the average weight. The cost to produce a larger animal is not significantly greater than a smaller animal,” Carter explains. “All the overheads are in there, you can spread it over greater kilograms of meat from the farm and then there are efficiencies in the system with the handling of a slightly heavier carcase.”
New Zealand still has a very low average carcase compared to the rest of the world. Overseas the carcase is cut up similar to a cattle beast into more modern cuts but New Zealand consumers still tend towards roasts, chops and bone-in products. That is the consumer preference but attitudes are changing.
“Getting into more modern cuts is certainly the objective of the industry,” he says.
While declining numbers of pig farmers is a worry, Carter says he is more concerned about the producers they lose. “We come under a fair amount of scrutiny. I am a lot more confident because the base that is left is a lot more professional and specialised in producing pig meat for the New Zealand consumer.”
He says the industry adopts innovative practices and exceeds global standards in most areas. They produce solely for the domestic market and “our neighbour is the consumer and the need for our neighbour to have confidence in us is critical to us”.
NZPork is looking at better cuts and consistently improving quality, transparency of the industry’s production systems, giving consumers choices and getting consumers to have confidence in New Zealand production system.
“We are proud of where we are compared to the imported product but it is just getting that consistent messaging across.”
Relations thaw with MPI
Since its long-standing legal action ended last year, NZPork is making better progress on negotiations with MPI over import health standards (IHS), NZPork chairman Ian Carter says.
The court case against MPI by NZPork over the introduction of new IHS lasted for a few years but ended in 2013 when the industry lost its appeal in the Supreme Court, Carter says in his report.
Getting free of legal entanglement is allowing the industry-good body to work with MPI on risks presented by the IHS.
“Together we are investigating how to effectively gather information that will help us to understand and manage the risk.” The product entering under the new IHS is being monitored by MPI.
