Deadly pork disease fears prompt import ruling appeal
NZPork appeals against court ruling allowing pigmeat imports from countries with PRRS.
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BUSINESSDESK: The Pork Industry Board is appealing a High Court decision allowing new health standards for imported pig meat, saying they increase the risk of infecting the local herd with the deadly Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome.
NZPork said the Ministry for Primary Industries hadn’t addressed its concerns about the risks of importing infected meat.
Imported pork accounts for about 45%, or about 800,000kg a week, of the pig meat consumed in New Zealand.
“This is not a trade matter,” NZPork chairman Ian Cater says.
“Pig meat imports from countries affected by PRRS have almost doubled since the rules requiring treatment of potentially infected meat were introduced in 2001.”
Mr Carter says concerns about New Zealand’s biosecurity have been growing in the wake of the devastation wrought on the kiwifruit industry by the vine-wasting disease PSA and the one-off case of Queensland fruit fly found in Auckland.
“The pig meat issue is yet a further example of loosening biosecurity controls by knowingly permitting an exotic, highly infectious organism to be released in New Zealand.”
New Zealand in 2001 imposed restrictions on imports of uncooked pork from countries where PRRS was present after research showed the virus could be transmitted to pigs by feeding them on infected meat.
Over the next decade, the ministry then known as MAF developed draft health standards for pork imports.
The standards were independently reviewed after a request by NZPork and the new import health standards were released in April last year, allowing imports from Canada, the EU, Mexico and the US.
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Deadly pork disease fears prompt import ruling appeal
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