The beleaguered pork industry has been offered sage advice by agriculture minister David Carter: maintain integrity of production.

Battling critical opposition from animal welfare groups and a rogue celebrity spokesman this year, pig meat farmers also must contend with rising feed costs and volatile farm gate prices.

At the New Zealand Pork Board conference this morning, Mr Carter advised pig farmers that the industry could treat animal welfare issues as an opportunity or a challenge.

“Because one thing is for sure, this issue ‘ain’t going away soon,” Mr Carter said in his speech.

Earlier, Mr Carter referred to the airing of the Sunday programme this year, which featured former pork industry advertising talent, comedian Mike King, breaking into a pig farm and revealing sow crates alongside an animal rights group.

“The Mike King Sunday programme fixed public concern on your industry like never before. From the Prime Minister down, it was clear that most of New Zealand was not comfortable with the conditions shown in the footage,” he said.

He went on to reiterate the words of former agriculture minister Jim Sutton who, in a speech at the same conference in 2001 said the industry needed to “take a good, hard look at yourselves.”

Mr Carter suggested pig farmers aim to be organic and also focus more on promotion based on the integrity of production.

“Where you can, proudly label that this pork chop is from a pig that was farmed outside, grazed on New Zealand pasture, in the best tradition of our clean green image.”

Production predictions for the current meat-producing year was for a reduction as a combination of factors forced farmers out of the industry. Below break-even revenues due to fluctuating demand for products and high feed prices.

There was a measurable drop in pork sales following the Mike King Sunday programme. This came after his face, fame and pork cooking tips were used to help grow pork consumption in New Zealand by half a kilo per person per year, rising 0.2kg last year. Up until then, we each ate 12kg of pig products each year.

The Mike King-fiasco is likely to affect this though. Mr Carter said the animal welfare issue remains a concern.

“The fundamental issue still remains that consumers, particularly the discerning consumers that buy your product, have genuine concerns around the integrity of production of the food they buy, and this definitely includes animal welfare,” he said.

“These consumers are completely rational people whose conscience affects their purchasing decisions.”