Our commitment – PigCare

Every pig farm in New Zealand will be audited, and only those farms that pass the welfare audit will be eligible to use the '100% New Zealand PigCare Accredited' pork label – fostering people’s connection to what they eat, how it is farmed and that it is distinctly 100% New Zealand – an informed and supportive choice.

Our industry continually investigates the best welfare options and outcomes for the farming of our pigs.

As part of the industry’s commitment to continuously improving the welfare of pigs, our farmers have committed to an independently administered welfare audit programme called 'PigCare'. The programme was developed with the support of MAF and in conjunction with veterinarians and peer reviewed internationally before implementation. PigCare Audits are administered and moderated by AsureQuality and conducted on-farm by AsureQuality trained auditors annually.

The audit scheme is for all commercial pig farms and smaller backyard farms looking to implement best practice, and assesses pig health and welfare against the National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee (NAWAC) Pigs Code of welfare. This audit provides assurance to consumers that pigs are well cared for but also identifies opportunities for farmers to further improve their practice.

In instances where farmers do not meet any part of the Welfare Code there is a clear path and timeline for remedying any issues; and a clear consequence where this fails to occur within the set timelines.

In addition to the on-farm PigCare audit, every pig sent for slaughter is inspected for its health and wellbeing at the abattoir. This provides further validation of proper care of those pigs.

In caring for pigs the Code is required to set standards and make recommendations so that carers take all reasonable steps to ensure that the physical, health and behavioural needs of pigs are met in accordance with good practice and scientific knowledge. The ‘physical, health and behavioural needs’ include:

1. Proper and sufficient food and water
2. Adequate shelter
3. Opportunity to display normal patterns of behaviour
4. Physical handling in a manner which minimises the likelihood of unreasonable or unnecessary pain or distress
5. Protection from, and rapid diagnosis of, any significant injury or disease;

In each case, as appropriate to the species, environment and circumstances of an animal.

The main regulatory check to date has been that every pig that is sent to an abattoir is inspected to make sure that it is fit and healthy. In this regard the majority of the pigs farmed in New Zealand are inspected – for example, 700,000 pigs are produced annually from approximately 35,000 sows, so almost all of the pigs on farms in New Zealand are inspected for health and welfare status annually.

In addition, most commercial farms have a regular veterinary visiting programme – the veterinarians are bound by an ethical standard to remedy pig health and welfare issues and in cases that breach the Act, to report them to the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF).

Our industry also has an MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) with MAF that sets out how welfare issues will be remedied and our industry generally takes it on itself to work with veterinarians and individual farmers to rapidly deal with welfare issues.

Regarding the pig welfare Code, it is currently being reviewed by NAWAC which is an independent body set up to develop codes and advise the Minister of Agriculture. NAWAC comprises a combination of experts with welfare skills, veterinarians, and other people with relevant skills.

BACK TO TOP

Our promise

On 03 December 2010 the new Animal Welfare (Pigs) Code came into effect. Under this code sow stalls are limited to four weeks per gestation effective from December 2012, and will be completely phased out by 03 December 2015 in favour of group housing.

The New Zealand pork industry supports the phasing out of gestation stalls which will place New Zealand pork producers at the forefront of global animal welfare.
NZPork are committed to collaborating with Government, the National Animal Welfare Committee (NAWAC) and farmers to facilitate this next stage in New Zealand pork production.

Our story so far...

In 2005 our industry implemented a 10 year pig welfare programme to educate our farmers and research new breeding sow management techniques. We have made significant progress with planned reforms in this area that include:

• Restricting the use of sow stalls to the first four weeks of pregnancy only
• A strong focus on welfare in training – a specific programme called ProHand that helps farm staff to understand pig psychology, and welfare and how they can be best managed.
• A scheme where concerned farmers can report fellow farmers who they believe aren’t providing adequate care and welfare to their pigs. An industry support network is also in place to ensure welfare issues are quickly remedied.
• Monitoring compliance with the Code in a range of ways and monitoring the transition of producers to new housing styles.
• Seminars, workshops and literature to help farmers assess their own practices.
• In 2008, an independent review of sow housing options confirmed the scientific evidence in regard to sow housing systems is still equivocal. It concluded that “no housing system is perfect and that each has its limitations”.
• Significant funding and resources committed to a three year project comparing new housing styles specifically within the New Zealand situation that do not use stalls. This research commenced in early 2010 and the SPCA was consulted in the development of this project.

Farmers have always been required to meet the requirements of the Animal Welfare Act 1999 and Pigs Code of Welfare 2005.

In the 2005 Code, our industry made the commitment to phase down the use of sow stalls from being able to house the sows in stalls for their full pregnancy (the standard for most of the world’s production and the countries that dominate pork imported into NZ) to where farmers would have the option to use the sow stalls for the first four weeks after sows become pregnant.

Why the first four weeks?

There is significant aggressive behaviour issues with sows during this period – her hormone levels are very high during this period and when in groups, regardless of whether they are indoors or outdoors, sows bully and fight to establish a hierarchy. This tends to result in significant injuries, endangers both the sow and her unborn piglets, and sows may not get adequate feed because the dominant sow keeps them away from the feed – resulting in sows losing weight and losing pregnancies. The stalls protect sows from each other and ensure that she gets her daily feed requirements and secures her pregnancy. Sows are then returned to groups in larger pens.

Having a sow in an individual pen prevents fighting, injuries, poor nutrition and loss of pregnancies. The phasing down to four weeks of pregnancy has a deadline of 03 December 2012.

Approximately 88% of our industry meets these targets already; and over half of those that were required to change have already done so. This change has occurred because our industry is confident that the welfare is better for the sow and viability can be maintained.

Many farmers actually endeavoured to remove sow stalls altogether following the 2005 review. However the consensus from those farmers was that sow welfare was so compromised that in the end many of them returned to the use of sow stalls for 4 weeks on their farms – a change driven by a genuine concern around sow welfare.

Our industry has committed to the ongoing investigation on alternative housing to the use of sow stalls. This includes international research reviews and our industry is currently seeking to set up on-farm trials in New Zealand to test new management methods and measure the welfare and production outcomes from those styles so that our farmers can be confident that if they are to change to new styles of farming, that they will be better for the pig and better for the farm.

Our industry will continue to look for alternatives that work effectively in commercial farming and once identified will work to phase out the use of gestation stalls by 2015. This time allows farmers to gain the knowledge and training they need to make the transition and do so affordably.

Ensuring cost competitive animal care practices is a core ingredient in providing New Zealanders with the choice of New Zealand born and raised pork long-term.

Every New Zealander has the ability to make a positive difference – both farmer and consumer alike.