A bill aiming to close the gap between the local animal welfare standards New Zealand farmers must meet, and what imported products are required to, has been added to the ballot.
The Animal Products (Closing the Welfare Gap) Amendment Bill, sponsored by Green Party agricultural spokesperson Steve Abel, is currently in the biscuit tin. It requires 61 MPs to support it for an early draw, or it can be drawn at random.
The bill amends the Animal Products Act 1999 to enable the Minister to set animal welfare standards for animal products sold in New Zealand. Those standards can cover rearing, management, handling, transport, and slaughter, whether the activity takes place here or overseas. The Minister must make regulations covering pigs and layer hens within two years of the bill coming into force.
More than 90% of pork imported to New Zealand in 2022 came from countries that allow sow stalls, which were banned here in 2016. A recent survey cited in the bill found more than 80% of New Zealanders agree imported products should meet the same animal welfare standards applied domestically.
“We got rid of sow stalls. New Zealanders don’t want to see mother pigs in cages,” says Abel.
“However, you can still import a pork product to this country that has been raised where the pig has been in a sow stall.”
A New Zealand pork farmer, he says, is currently competing on the supermarket shelf with a product produced under lower welfare standards than they are legally allowed to produce here.
Abel says New Zealand’s Animal Welfare Act is not always enforced as well as it should be, and that welfare breaches in this country should be dealt with better. The Greens also remain opposed to farrowing crates, which are still in use in New Zealand pork production.
New Zealand sources about 21% of its pork from the United States, but 76% of that volume is already produced as non-sow stall.
“We’re just not currently requiring them to send us that pork,” Abel says.
He says the public morals principle under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules is the same basis on which some countries prohibit imports of whale meat or fur, and is legal grounding for the bill. Any restriction on imports under WTO rules must be applied equally to all countries exporting that product to New Zealand.
“We’re not actually stopping trade from any country. We’re just saying, ‘If you’re going to trade with us, you need to send us the higher welfare standard pork.'”
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