Welfare

Or are we being welfare-washed? Did you know that up to 60% of New Zealand pig farmers use steel farrowing crates? That's a barred metal crate that confines a ...

The current issues within the animal welfare system can be described as a "wicked problem" there is no-one simple solution to and it has many inter-linked dependencies. Trade-offs between animal welfare and money, the environment or ease of management are common and, arguably to some degree, necessary. Plant monocultures require tillage, and the various "-cides" (pesti-; herbi-; fungi-). Does this create a conflict in priorities, even if acceptable animal welfare does not have to mean poor economic performance? The National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee (NAWAC) established under the Animal Welfare Act to provide independent advice to the responsible minister has been signalling since 2005 that crates don’t meet the principles of the Animal Welfare Act, yet there is lobbying from within the pork industry to allow ongoing use. There’s a lot of noise about the Code but it’s actually only one of a number of challenges that animal agriculture is facing. For their part, animal welfare lawyers behind the review said, "The solution will need to come from pig experts, not those whose profit depends on litter size". A common narrative from the sector is that "farrowing crates are used internationally to balance the welfare of the sow with protecting piglets". New Zealand Pork is the industry board that works to support New Zealand’s commercial pig farmers. You may have seen this playing out in the debates around the great egg shortage. We import roughly 60% of pig products we use and we’ve been told these come from countries with "lower standards of welfare". Aotearoa is often described as "world-leading in animal welfare", but are we really?