The Green Party says it will look to change laws on pig mating practices. Photo / 123RF
The Green Party says the Associate Agriculture Minister ignoring official advice proposing changes to pig mating practices exacerbates animal distress and fails to properly regulate the pork industry.
Minister Andrew Hoggard maintains the decade he has given pig farms to adopt new regulations is “realistic”, but he also expects operators to act quickly regarding mating stalls.
In October, Hoggard announced a raft of changes to the Animal Welfare Act 1999, which required improvements to the use of farrowing crates, designed to prevent a sow crushing her piglets, and mating stalls, as well as requirements for space to grow pigs.
It would reduce the time sows were kept in farrowing crates from a maximum of 33 days to seven days, as well as requiring materials enabling nest-building behaviours.
For mating stalls, the changes would mean sows couldn’t be confined for more than three hours at a time, down from seven days.
Describing the reform as “substantial”, Hoggard said the requirements wouldn’t come into force until December 2035 to “give farmers sufficient time to prepare for them”.
However, advice provided to Hoggard from the Ministry of Primary Industries indicated a decade-long delay to introduce new mating stall standards was not necessary.
Officials in June advised Hoggard that NZ Pork, the statutory industry board that supports New Zealand’s commercial pig farmers, had contacted the ministry indicating farmers could live with a six-month lead-in to the new mating stall practices coming into force.
Following that feedback, one of the ministry’s recommendations was to require the mating stall changes from July 2026, while pushing out the changes to farrowing crates to July 2031.
It also suggested an alternative option of aligning both changes to be introduced by July 2031.
Green Party animal welfare spokesman Steve Abel told the Herald Hoggard’s decision not to follow the advice and instead opt for a 10-year transition period was not in the best interest of the animals.
“In no degree has the minister centred the best options for the mother pigs; it’s always about centring what the pork industry would prefer.
“He’s bending over backwards to do the bidding of the pork industry rather than actually look at practical ways to make life less miserable for mother pigs in our farming systems.”
Abel maintained pigs were “miserable” spending days in mating stalls and although he didn’t regard the new three-hour regulation as optimal, he described it as a “big improvement on the status quo”.
With a change of government likely in the next 10 years, Abel said the regulations would not be “politically tenable”.
“I think the pork industry are fools if they think that the New Zealand public are going to put up with keeping mother pigs in cages, whether it’s farrowing crates or mating stalls, for another 10 years.
“It’s not tenable for us to from a point of view of truly upholding the Animal Welfare Act, but also from a point of view of public sentiment ... there is not a social licence for us to be treating animals in this way and it’s appropriate that a responsible government takes the steps to move away from animal suffering and frankly, animal cruelty.”
In a statement, Hoggard said 10 years was a realistic timeframe that would allow pig farmers to pay for and implement new infrastructure and farm systems that would comply with the new rules.
“If we want a New Zealand-grown pork industry, we must give farmers adequate time to make these changes.
“I made the call to set a single transition time for all of the proposed changes, acknowledging that some farmers may choose to completely reform their farming systems.
“But, not all farmers will need the full 10 years and I expect the sector to move faster where it can.
“The change the Government is proposing to mating stalls is more of a practice change and one area where I would expect the sector to act quickly.”
Adam Pearse is the Deputy Political Editor and part of the NZ Herald’s Press Gallery team based at Parliament in Wellington. He has worked for NZME since 2018, reporting for the Northern Advocate in Whangārei and the Herald in Auckland.