MANAGEMENT
ANIMAL HEALTH
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Gisborne farmers deering to be different. PAGE 21
Promising early results for facial eczema test. PAGE 23
Ag man bags top science role. PAGE 10
TO ALL FARMERS, FOR ALL FARMERS JULY 13, 2021: ISSUE 730
www.ruralnews.co.nz
Crisis coming! PETER BURKE peterb@ruralnews.co.nz
NZ’S MEAT processing industry could grind to a halt in the next six months unless the Government acts to allow Muslim slaughtermen to come into the country. More than 90% of New Zealand meat is slaughtered by the halal method and this can only be done by people who are fully qualified to undertake this work.
Meat Industry Association (MIA) chief executive Sirma Karapeeva told Rural News the situation is not great. She recently made an impassioned appeal to Parliament’s primary production select committee in a bid to prod the Government into progressing the issue. About 250 halal slaughtermen are employed in the meat industry, almost all of them from overseas. But half of them are on visas which are due to expire in the next six or so months and
Karapeeva says when their visas run out, there is no certainty that replacements will be allowed in. “This is what we are most worried about because halal processing is so critical to what we do and so we are not in a very good position,” she says. The reason that most of the animals are slaughtered by the halal method is to give the meat exporters the flexibility to sell their meat to any country in the world. The halal cut is a critical part in the killing process Karape-
Digging in!
eva says. “Once the animal is deemed to be slaughtered in the halal way, then it can continue through the chain as a halal carcass and can be broken down into various bits and pieces for export,” she explains. “If the animal is not slaughtered in the halal manner there is absolutely no way in the ongoing process to designate it halal.” In the past, Muslim slaughtermen have come from places such as Fiji and TO PAGE 3
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE WAIKATO REGIONAL COUNCIL.
TE POI School, in rural Waikato at the base of the Kaimai Ranges, students, teachers and their families recently took part in a planting day, where 500 plants went into a wetland on a neighbouring farm. The project is part of the Upper Waiomou Stream restoration scheme, which has $1.74m in funding from the Jobs for Nature programme and $74,500 from Fonterra’s environmental partnerships programme. This project is about removing and managing overgrown willow and poplar trees along the upper Waiomou Stream and tributaries. Over four years, 48km of riparian margin will be retired and planted out (128,000 native plants). The council is currently working with seven landowners to deliver this project. Te Poi School principal Linda Larsen says the Enviroschool had been planting wetlands on the farm since 2013.
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HONEY IN STICKY SPOT APICULTURE NZ says the future focus of the industry is finding markets for what is seen as a glut of honey. Chair Bruce Wills says the industry’s recent three-day conference was a mixture of positive news and challenges. But it was honey exports that took centre stage. In the year ended 2020, New Zealand earned $505 million from honey exports, but the outlook for this season is not good. In MPI’s (Ministry for Primary Industries) latest report on the state of the primary sector, the bad news is spelt out with honey exports predicted to be down almost $1 million by 2025. However, the problem is worse, with an estimated 20,000 tonnes of unsold honey being held in beekeepers’ sheds around the country. This honey mountain is equivalent to about a year of production. Wills says this all goes back to the controversy over what is and isn’t mānuka honey. “The price of the honey that didn’t meet the mānuka criteria crashed and a bunch of beekeepers have said they will keep this in their shed because they are not prepared to sell at the low price.” Wills says the mānuka boom also saw a dramatic rise in hive numbers and these now stand at about 900,000. The value for pollination and other bee products is estimated at about $5 billion. – Peter Burke