Andrew Hoggard: Associate Agricultural Minister on the new welfare requirements for pig farming

Hopes new welfare requirements for pig farming will streamline how things operate. 

The changes include requirements for the use of farrowing crates and mating stalls, as well as requirements for space to grow pigs. 

They won't come into force until the end of 2035, so farmers have time to prepare. 

Associate Agriculture Minister Andrew Hoggard told Mike Hosking] this gives the industry certainty in how to move forward. 

He says they've been living in a bit of a limbo land for the last five-to-seven years, and it’s affecting confidence in the sector. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welfare rules, new welfare rules for our pig farming industry,
which is a seven hundred million dollar operation. Minimum spacing
requirements will rise thirteen percent time and faroing crates will
drop from thirty three days to seven. So that's major
others taken five years of consultation makes us one of
the strictest operators in the world. Andrew Hoggard's in charge
of this, Associate Ministry for the Agriculture and Animal Welfare Morning.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Good morning Mike.

Speaker 3 (00:21):
This needed doing, Yes, it did really important that the
industry was given some certainty around what their future looks like.
They've been living in a bit of a limbo land
since effectively twenty twenty or perhaps even twenty eighteen, and
it'd been really heading confidence in the sector and also

(00:42):
people's thoughts or plans around succession and where they move
forward to. So it gives the industry held a lot
of certainty as to how to move forward.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
Why did it take five years?

Speaker 2 (00:54):
The Nework Review started in I think twenty twenty. Obviously,
when I got the role early twenty four it landed
on my desk and I said, well, this is going
to affect the industry quite badly. These recommendations as they were,
and the industry was definitely not happy with them. So
set MPI and to negotiate or to talk to the

(01:19):
industry as to what would be workable while still moving
welfare forward. That took a bit of time, and then
the rest of the time has been worked out and
how the hell do we make this happen. The big
challenge was the fact that the previous government had used,
already used a transition time up and the money allowed
to do that once during the act. So hence, while

(01:40):
we landed on okay, we've actually got to take regulations
to the House so that I can give a second
transition period so that these farmers can actually make these changes,
because they're not going to be simple changes. They may
involve having the rebuild facilities and all the rest of it,
which will probably require consents and all that. So this
is not a simple thing that the industry can suddenly

(02:01):
click its fingers and magically move to a new system.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
Hence we've got till twenty thirty five. Having said all
of that, the harder you make it, where does that
leave imported meat versus local meat? And have you hobbled
the industry? No?

Speaker 2 (02:13):
The industry. My feedback from the industry is they can
do this. They just they needed something that was achievable.
They felt that this was achievable and also that certainty
and that transition period was really important. Was the feedback
I'd gotten.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
All Right, mate, go well, have a good weekend. Andrew Hoggard,
Associate Minister of Agriculture.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
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