Friday, March 29, 2024

‘Bullied’ Govt blames farmers

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Dairy farmers wanted calf welfare rules that were sensible, practical and affordable and not everyone is happy with the latest regulations, Federated Farmers dairy chairman Chris Lewis says.
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The final two of seven new calf welfare regulations came into effect on August 1, mandating the provision of shelter and loading and unloading facilities when calves were transported for sale or slaughter.

Lewis said Federated Farmers pushed back against proposed regulations and compliance costs but the Ministry for Primary Industries was determined to bring in new rules after animal welfare breaches were shown on television.

“Farmers have to work within the new climate of public opinion.

“For some it has been easy to implement the new rules, for others frustrating, especially with a lack of money to spend over recent seasons.”

Lewis built a 4.5m square raised loading pen and ramp for about $2000 though he had heard of larger sums being spent.

More than 500 bobby calves would leave his Waikato farm this year through that facility.

“It has made life easier and I expect it to last a generation.”

A major calf supplier in Waikato said some dairy farms had not yet built pens of the required standard and were risking compliance visits and fines from MPI.

He believed the Government took a sledgehammer to drive a nail and it could have consulted a relatively small number of key people in the dairy, meat and calf-rearing industries to come up with practical and workable solutions.

Instead, it had been bullied by Safe and unbalanced reporting into drafting regulations that penalised all dairy farmers and potentially ruined the economics of bobby calf collection.

“The dairy farmers have been penalised when it was the transport operators and their staff member who got caught on television.”

The prices paid by meat companies were as low as 90c/kg for lighter calves or $3-$5/head for a light Jersey calf.

“Why should farmers build costly facilities for returns from bobby calves that might be a quarter of 1% of their farm income?”

Some had indicated already they would shoot low-value calves onfarm rather than build proper pens to have them collected.

Meat companies had trucks criss-crossing dairy regions to pick up bobby calves, incurring high expenses for low rewards so that next year the prices paid for bobbies could be even lower.

He believed the meat and transport companies should have self-regulated the operator-acceptable picking up of calves and the facilities that farmers needed to provide.

Workers should also have been educated on the proper way to pick up calves to get them on to trucks.

Dairy farmers themselves picked up new-born calves all the time, from ground level, when they were slippery and in paddocks.

People who transported calves in trailers or utilities could load and unload as they wished, thereby creating a double standard for calf handling.

Truck drivers were also able to lift calves to trucks’ second levels and many were still grabbing a few calves from pens instead of using ramps provided.

He said it was good to see the welfare regulations now included a requirement for all calf transports to be covered because wet calves were exposed to death by hypothermia when chilled by winds.

 

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