By Lachlan Forsyth
James Freeth runs a large free range pig farm in the shadows of the Southern Alps.
His pigs are happy pigs. They have plenty of shelter, lots of food, and of course all that mud to wallow in.
But the downside of all that lovely open air is they are also incredibly vulnerable to airborne diseases.
“We can't really put a little dust mask on the front of each pig. There's nothing we can do, just got to cross out fingers and hope, once it's in the country. The best bet is to stop diseases coming into the country, rather than trying to deal with the mess afterwards,” Mr Freeth said.
The worst of those diseases is Porcine Reproductive Respiratory Syndrome.
“[It] is a viral disease that affects pigs, it is recognised as the most damaging and severe pig disease in the world, and it is the one we are most concerned about in New Zealand. We don't have it presently in NZ, and we'd like to keep it that way,” said Bruce Welch, a pig vet.
PRRS causes severe immune deficiencies - similar to HIV - leaving animals exposed to other diseases.
It also causes significant deaths to both live and unborn piglets, so the thought of it becoming established in New Zealand is a huge worry.
“Our concerns are one the one hand requiring us to have the highest animal welfare standards in the world - and fair enough - on the other hand relaxing controls that will allow this disease to enter and the animal welfare issues that go with it,” says Mr Welch.
Processed pork imports are already allowed into New Zealand - as well as raw pork from PRRS-free countries.
But now MAF wants to relax import standards from countries known to have PRRS - such as the US and Canada.
John Hartnell of Federated Farmers says he was told it was to do with free trade.
“I don't believe that's the case when it risks and industry, which is what we're looking at here. It's not a risk that we want. It almost makes a mockery of the new biosecurity systems they're trying to put in under the govt industry agreements,” he said.
Mr Freeth has already dealt with PRRS once before in the UK, where it's known as blue ear disease.
“Back then we were quite young, we had nothing behind us and the pigs were all we had, it was everything to us, so we were devastated by it,” he said.
“Back then it was quite a mild strain, but now the strains in America and Canada are a lot more virulent and a lot more devastating on the farm.”
Even that mild strain was enough to put him out of business. Now he is facing it all over again.
He and his fellow farmers are wondering why?
“I think it's bewilderment really, nobody can understand why. Why would we want to relax standards and potentially let a devastating disease in?” He said.
MAF says the risk of PRRS becoming established here is negligible - a one in 1227 year chance.
But a study by Massey University in 2007 found that once established in an initial herd, PRRS would spread rapidly and widely throughout New Zealand.
Using a mean of 4.3 infected premises each year, and a 36 percent probability of it spreading - far from a one in 1200 year risk, the study estimated a 95 percent likelihood of a multi-herd outbreak within three years.
So opponents say whatever the odds are, they are too high, and once it arrives, farmers fear there will be no stopping it
“There's 130 commercial farms but there's 10,000 people with pigs in their backyard who feed them on scraps. It just takes one piece of uncooked meat fed to them and the game's up,” Mr Freeth said.
The Greens’ Kevin Hague agrees.
“There seems no advantage to NZ consumers or the NZ pig industry to take that risk. It seems only a government hell-bent on free trade and facilitating free trade that is driving this decision,” he said.
When the Greens and Federated Farmers are singing the same tune, you know it's serious.
“It's a small industry. It doesn't take much before they could be wiped out and it would be a hard road to recover for those industries,” said Mr Hartnell.
“I cannot see how a rational analysis of evidence by MAF could possibly conclude that this is the right decision to make,” said Mr Hague.
If MAF gets its way, Mr Freeth says free range farms like his will disappear. There's simply no way he will put his animals at risk.
“The last thing we want to see is an animal suffering. It's devastating to farmers as well as pigs. Because a lot of illnesses you can treat, but this one there's nothing. You just sit back and wait.”
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