Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Brent Kleiss: NZ Pork CEO on the new requirements for pig farmers, whether they should be applied to imported pork

Transcript

Brent Kleiss: NZ Pork CEO on the new requirements for pig farmers, whether they should be applied to imported pork · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: New rules for pig farmers. Sales will now spend time
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: and creates less time, I should say, and creates a
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: limit on mating stools and an increased space for growing
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: pigs by thirteen percent. It'll make our standards amongst the
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: highest in the world. Farmers get a ten year window
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: to adjust to this. But what about the cost and
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: the practicality? Brink classes with me, ended Pork's CEO Bran
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Good morning, Good morning, Brent. Good to have you on
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: the show.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Morning Ryan, How are you very well?
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Thank you? So what the do you have you worked
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: out what this might cost the industry, what the added
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: cost might be.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's going to be a lot. There's
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: a lot of physical changes need to happen on farm.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: There'll be some farmers that are looking at especially the
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: space requirements and realizing they're going to have to rip
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: out a lot of buildings, maybe even build new ones.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: But overall it's something that pig industry recognizes needs to happen.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: The position that government's come to on welfare is, you know,
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: it's going to put us up there with the best
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: in the world. So the science is backing the positions
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: they've come to. The hardb is the cost.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Yes, what is the science telling you about the welfare
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: of the animal?
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, far and creates provide piglet protection during
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: the most vulnerable days of the piglet's life. They're specifically
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: designed to reduce the main causes of piglet death, you know, starvation, hypothemia,
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: all those horrible things being crushed by the sour itself.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: And so whilst we have been using them for up
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: to four weeks after the sour gives birth, the science
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: shows that actually it's just that first four days that
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: it has the most effect, and after that we're able
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: to buggets take care of the piglet's needs without the
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: need for the sow to be so confined. So most
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: of the rest of the world, in fact, countries come
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: into that send pork to New Zealand and I can listen,
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: you know, USA, Canada, Spain, Australia, Yllands, Poland, Ireland, UK, China, Italy, Belgium,
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: all of them seen pork products or pork to New Zealand,
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: and all of them have no restriction on the Usafarian
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: cras or any confinement at all. So we're up there
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: with the best of the world. But we've just got
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: to figure out this real issue of leveling the playing
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: field against imports.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Yes, this is the problem, right because we import. I mean,
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: in terms of what you produce as an industry, how
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: much of it is it exported versus stays here?
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: Almost zero gets exported.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: Right, So you're competing now with countries who've got much
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: lower standards. Therefore it's going to be cheaper.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: How do you do?
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: How do you compete?
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, sixty percent of what people eat here is imported.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: And a lot of the countries that actually are I
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: guess close to or on some respects considered to have
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: more stringent standards than New Zealand. There's only about three
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: of them. Sweden, Switzerland, Norway are really good examples. They've
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: got significant government subsidization. Up to sixty percent of Norway's
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: farm income on pig farms is government funded. And New
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: Zealand that's what we're competing with, and they don't have
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: imports coming in either.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Right, So what do you do then? Do we have
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: some kind of import standard that they need to meet
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: from animal welfare.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: That would be ideal, though we've got trade considerations that
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: I'm sure the government's very worried about. I think if
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: consumers were able to make better choices, if they were
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: able to see labeling and information about where their port's
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: coming from a lot clearer and stores, that would really
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: help it. Give people the choice, and in the retailers
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: and those that use pork products in New Zealand making
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: the right choice and thinking about the standards the pork's
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: produced under and what they want to support with the
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: money they pay for it by choosing to buy New Zealand.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: It's going to be very, very difficult, I think, to
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: convince the government to change import rules, but it is
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: the ideal.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: They got great trade deals and stuff to worry about.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: As you say, Brent, appreciate your trying and brink Class
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: sounding pretty upbeat despite what the extra cost will mean
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: for them. Brink Class the n ZED pork chief executive
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: with us this morning. I guess the moral of the
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: story is if you care about animal welfare, and obviously
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: we do because this is a pro farming a government
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: that's changing this law, then you go and buy. When
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: you go to the supermarket to buy your pork, you
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: go and find something that is produced.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: Here for more from early edition with Ryan Bridge listen
• 4:34
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• 4:37
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