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Source: Close Up
Animal welfare lobbyists say consumers should not assume new labels on domestic pork saying "Welfare Approved" mean the meat has been endorsed by their groups.
Even though the meat will be labelled "100 percent NZPork Welfare Approved", the label is not expected to clarify whether the meat comes from free-range sows or from those confined in sow crates or farrowing stalls, said Royal New Zealand SPCA national chief executive, Robyn Kippenberger.
"This label will not mean that the meat in the packet is SPCA approved or that it's been produced in conditions that meet our welfare standards," she said today.
New Zealand Pork's chief executive Sam McIvor has denied the label would mislead shoppers "as the welfare of those animals will have been checked against our audit system and those animals' welfare will have been proven to be excellent".
But Hans Kriek, the campaign director of another animal welfare group, Safe, said virtually all pig farmers would qualify to use the label since the audit on which it was based used the welfare code for pigs which allowed sow crates and farrow stalls.
The label was "meaningless," he said.
Kippenberger said pork products on the New Zealand market approved by a welfare body were those carrying the SPCA "blue tick", an accreditation scheme that audits farms against welfare standards banning the use of sow stalls and farrowing crates.
That audit was independent of any financial gain and is a guarantee that the cruel confinement of breeding sows did not occur, she said.
The NZ Pork labels do not say if the "welfare approved" pigs are reared using sow crates and farrowing stalls. Sow crates are banned in the United Kingdom and parts of the United States.
The National Animal Welfare Advisory Council is revamping the 2005 welfare code - with new limits for the amount of time sow crates can be used after a sow has given birth (four weeks), and has proposed they be banned by 2017.
Kippenberger said greater clarity and transparency was needed in labelling of pork and pork products, and the SPCA was frustrated that the pork industry continued to "fudge" the issue of how meat was produced.
She questioned whether the labels would potentially breach of the Fair Trading Act.
The industry was not making a convincing case when it talked about reducing the length of time pigs spent in confinement, as the law provided no enforcement methods and it was virtually impossible to monitor the time that any particular sow was kept in a stall or crate.
