Brent Kleiss: NZ Pork CEO on the new requirements for pig farmers, whether they should be applied to imported pork

Producers want pork from abroad plated up with transparency. 

The Government's raising minimum spacing requirements to 13% while time in farrowing crates drops from 33 days to just seven. 

Farmers need to implement the changes by 2035. 

NZ Pork Chief Executive Brent Kleiss told Ryan Bridge 60% of Kiwis eat imported pork, so it would be ideal to introduce standards for them too. 

He says if consumers were able to see clearer information about where their pork is coming from, it would give them more choice. 

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
New rules for pig farmers. Sales will now spend time
and creates less time, I should say, and creates a
limit on mating stools and an increased space for growing
pigs by thirteen percent. It'll make our standards amongst the
highest in the world. Farmers get a ten year window
to adjust to this. But what about the cost and
the practicality? Brink classes with me, ended Pork's CEO Bran

(00:20):
Good morning, Good morning, Brent. Good to have you on
the show.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Morning Ryan, How are you very well?

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Thank you? So what the do you have you worked
out what this might cost the industry, what the added
cost might be.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Yeah, I mean it's going to be a lot. There's
a lot of physical changes need to happen on farm.
There'll be some farmers that are looking at especially the
space requirements and realizing they're going to have to rip
out a lot of buildings, maybe even build new ones.
But overall it's something that pig industry recognizes needs to happen.
The position that government's come to on welfare is, you know,

(00:59):
it's going to put us up there with the best
in the world. So the science is backing the positions
they've come to. The hardb is the cost.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Yes, what is the science telling you about the welfare
of the animal?

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Well, you know, far and creates provide piglet protection during
the most vulnerable days of the piglet's life. They're specifically
designed to reduce the main causes of piglet death, you know, starvation, hypothemia,
all those horrible things being crushed by the sour itself.
And so whilst we have been using them for up
to four weeks after the sour gives birth, the science

(01:36):
shows that actually it's just that first four days that
it has the most effect, and after that we're able
to buggets take care of the piglet's needs without the
need for the sow to be so confined. So most
of the rest of the world, in fact, countries come
into that send pork to New Zealand and I can listen,

(01:57):
you know, USA, Canada, Spain, Australia, Yllands, Poland, Ireland, UK, China, Italy, Belgium,
all of them seen pork products or pork to New Zealand,
and all of them have no restriction on the Usafarian
cras or any confinement at all. So we're up there
with the best of the world. But we've just got
to figure out this real issue of leveling the playing

(02:17):
field against imports.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
Yes, this is the problem, right because we import. I mean,
in terms of what you produce as an industry, how
much of it is it exported versus stays here?

Speaker 2 (02:29):
Almost zero gets exported.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
Right, So you're competing now with countries who've got much
lower standards. Therefore it's going to be cheaper.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
How do you do?

Speaker 1 (02:36):
How do you compete?

Speaker 2 (02:37):
Yeah, sixty percent of what people eat here is imported.
And a lot of the countries that actually are I
guess close to or on some respects considered to have
more stringent standards than New Zealand. There's only about three
of them. Sweden, Switzerland, Norway are really good examples. They've

(02:58):
got significant government subsidization. Up to sixty percent of Norway's
farm income on pig farms is government funded. And New
Zealand that's what we're competing with, and they don't have
imports coming in either.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
Right, So what do you do then? Do we have
some kind of import standard that they need to meet
from animal welfare.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
That would be ideal, though we've got trade considerations that
I'm sure the government's very worried about. I think if
consumers were able to make better choices, if they were
able to see labeling and information about where their port's
coming from a lot clearer and stores, that would really
help it. Give people the choice, and in the retailers

(03:44):
and those that use pork products in New Zealand making
the right choice and thinking about the standards the pork's
produced under and what they want to support with the
money they pay for it by choosing to buy New Zealand.
It's going to be very, very difficult, I think, to
convince the government to change import rules, but it is

(04:06):
the ideal.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
They got great trade deals and stuff to worry about.
As you say, Brent, appreciate your trying and brink Class
sounding pretty upbeat despite what the extra cost will mean
for them. Brink Class the n ZED pork chief executive
with us this morning. I guess the moral of the
story is if you care about animal welfare, and obviously
we do because this is a pro farming a government
that's changing this law, then you go and buy. When
you go to the supermarket to buy your pork, you

(04:28):
go and find something that is produced.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
Here for more from early edition with Ryan Bridge listen
live to news talks it'd be from five am weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio