Freedom Farms pork co-founder distasteful in selling his fellow farmers down the road...

If there is one thing Farmgirl abhors more than any other, it is when a fellow farmer decides to sell the rest down the road to prop up his own business.

Never was this shown as clearly as when Freedom Farms co-founder Gregor Fyfe decided to use the blatant hype surrounding the so called 'sow pig crate cruelty' this last week as fodder to promote himself and his business through letters to the editor that were surprisingly published in a number of newspaper publications.

In them Fyfe said:

"Mike King's expose of intensive pig farming in New Zealand on Sunday (TV One) last night was sickening, but brilliant.
It must've taken a huge amount of courage for Mike to admit that he was wrong to put his name to the NZ Pork Industry Board without first investigating the way the majority of pigs are reared in this country.
Thanks to the efforts of Safe to enlighten him, Mike has now seen the extent of the suffering that many of the pigs living here endure on a daily basis.
And, to his credit, he was so appalled by the conditions (in particular the use of sow stalls), that he felt compelled to tell the rest of the country about it.
Happily for Mike and the rest of us pork lovers, there is an alternative. Many pigs are now being farmed without those crates and fattening pens and there are a growing number of free-range pork products available in specialty stores and supermarkets nationwide.
If you want your pork to come from happy pigs, the answer is simple. Check the label. If it doesn't say free range or free farmed then chances are it's not."

Firstly Farmgirl questions why newspapers would run such a blatant commercial advertisement disguised as a letter in the first place? Fyfe must have been rubbing his hands together gleefully at the free publicity he received.

Again and again in the farming community we see industries diluted by the lack of combined strength among farmers. It happens in the arable industry when farmers succumb to ridiculous wheat contract prices like they are at present and Fyfe has shown when the going gets tough in the pork industry, he bails and promotes himself which in Farmgirl's opinion is the lowest a man can go.

Okay, if he had advised that his product was free range and that consumers had a choice, that would have been alright, but to boot the poor pig farmers in the North Island while they're down by commenting sarcastically on their practices is just unacceptable.

But you know what - this money grabbing betrayer won the week. In supermarkets Farmgirl viewed this very morning in Canterbury, shelves that were normally full of expensive Freedom Farm bacon are near empty.

Farmgirl even bought some bacon from them today as well as many others to test whether their product is worth it's hefty $10.00 for 300grams.

In another irony Farmgirl questioned her local butcher this morning who informed her that they had sold 'astronomical' amounts of pork this week but that people still hadn't asked where it had come from, they just assumed that if it came from the butcher it wouldn't have been in a sow crate.

He thought the issue was crazy and said that most pork farmers have to separate out their sows in stalls for short periods of time to protect them even on so called 'free range farms'.

One thing is certain, there are three identities that benefited from this last week financially, Mike King, S.A.F.E and of course Freedom Farms.

Hope the bacon doesn't taste too bitter in your mouth Gregor...

King should give money back

It's laughable how devoutly Mike King denied having any knowledge of the pig industry and its practices on Close Up last night but may-be it's a sign of the times and something that Farmgirl has been blogging over for some time - the growing gap between producers and consumers.

In this case however, the wounded pork industry has never attempted to hide that there are still sow stalls in this country. Pork Industry Board chairman Chris Trengrove should be applauded not vilified by two henchmen as he was last night. What they don't tell you on that current affairs programme is that Chris has been advocating for change for some years and has steadfastly stuck to the cause of helping the industry get past these practices and has been succeeding.

Farmgirl feels the need to explain the financial difficulties the pork industry has faced over the past decade once again. To be frank the industry nearly went belly up because Canadian pork in particular was being imported into our supermarkets at cut down prices. How were they able to get the pork so cheap when you take into account transport costs? - by producing the pork in far more intensive and disgusting systems then this country has ever had.

This has nearly forced all our pork farmers out of business as consumers have been only too happy to buy cheaper pork, no matter the animal welfare standards and no matter the level of hormones etc in the meat.

To expect that all pork farmers will now release their piggy wiggies onto some hallowed green paddock is ridiculous and hypocritical for the following reasons:

1 The price of imported pork means free range operations are not viable unless the consumer

pays a heck of a lot more as they can not produce as many pigs or fatten as quickly.

2 Free range pork is still a niche market - for the wealthy.

3 Some breeds of pigs are particularly aggressive towards one another. Why didn't King show

the results of sows attacking one another? - it's far more gruesome then the footage shown the

other night.

So it seems the NZ consumer has to make their minds up. And herein lies the problem. Our generation more than any other lives in a world where meat is relatively cheap. Where once, having a roast chicken was a looked forward delicacy, it has now become a cheap commodity on the family plate that can be served up every night.

As New Zealanders we expect meat on our plate but once upon a time pork used to be a treat, as was bacon, to be savoured and enjoyed. Now we expect to have it whenever we get the craving.

May-be we need to change our habits?

Farmgirl has recently changed her chicken consumption and now orders $32 fully free ranged chicken from Southland. It is expensive especially with households living on an ever decreasing budget these days, but chicken in Farmgirl's household has now become a rarity and a tasty one at that. It is eaten once every fortnight and every part of the chicken is used for stocks, soups etc. This is one way we can support our pork farmers. Another is by refusing to buy imported pork.

King's hypocrisy won't help the industry - in fact a negative reaction could send our pork farmers under and then we would have to rely on the rubbish that is imported from overseas.

It's up to us.

And if King truly believes in what he's saying and is not trying to pull some publicity stunt to help his career, he should donate all his previous earnings from the Pork Board to S.A.F.E but as the saying goes, pigs might fly...

Mike King as guilty as all consumers for sow crates in pork industry and should share in responsibility

It was hard core stuff on Sunday tonight. Mike King, a former advocate for New Zealand pork and mouthpiece for industry ads has jumped ship and attacked farmers for the use of sow stalls. Emotive footage and unbalanced reporting followed and not one pork farmer who uses the stalls was allowed to give a reason as to why the practice occurs.

In her agricultural journalism career Farmgirl has followed intensely the plight of the nation's pig farmers and has some sympathy for their situation. To portray the farmers as the common enemy is an injustice that ignorant mouthpieces like King would never understand.

If he did his background research he might understand that he and every other consumer of bacon or pork in this country are just as culpable for sow crate farming as the farmer themselves.

Farmgirl would like to know if these 'het up' consumers check their overseas pork that has flooded our supermarkets. If they did they might realise that the bacon they purchase is also farmed in the same way - through crates. If you ban them in New Zealand you have to ban all imports from overseas - a situation most pig farmers in NZ would rejoice about.

Let's get one thing straight right now - pig farmers don't like the practice, they want to change but there is no economically viable way forward for them to do so as long as cheap imported pork continues to flood in.

There will be a huge public outcry over the footage shot on Sunday, but Farmgirl wonders how many will change their spending habits and instead buy free range NZ pork to support the industry. If everyone did change the pork farmers would have the support to do the same.

Farmgirl is sick and tired of celebrities jumping on the bandwagon of something they do not really understand, and something they themselves have forced farmers to do. And it's laughable that King says he didn't know this was going on when he signed his contract with the Pork Board - what rot - this issue has been around for a long time.

The pleasing aspects to the situation is that most pig farmers are trying to break free of the system - and Farmgirl has seen some stunning results in the form of Eco Sheds etc, but it takes cashflow. If King and his cronies are so upset why don't they get on the box and encourage people to buy the more expensive option as Jamie Oliver did successfully with his recent chicken campaign.

Unlike King, Jamie took the time to explain why farmers do what they do and put much of the onus back on consumers.