News

Fonterra and DairyNZ have today been contacted by SAFE asking them to urgently put in place a protection scheme for farm cruelty whistleblowers. A whistleblower protection programme would encourage people to come forward with legitimate complaints of cruelty and law-breaking, and make it easy for them to do so. We...

Associate Minister of Agriculture Meka Whaitiri has great hopes for the future of animal welfare. On Friday she released her Framework for Action on Animal Welfare. It was published after SAFE and Farmwatch’s dairy exposé last week. The Framework focuses on four areas: Independent Voice, Transparency, Strengthening Codes and Capacity Building. While...

New footage shows a pit of bodies on the Northland dairy farm at the centre of last week’s bashing exposé. It is sadly commonplace for farms to have so-called ‘offal pits’ containing the bodies of animals that have been killed or have died. We believe the pit was not examined by...

After disturbing footage of animal abuse on a Northland dairy farm was released yesterday, we are demanding that the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) be stripped of its animal welfare responsibilities and an independent Animal Welfare Ministry be set up. “The Ministry needs to explain why they failed to act...

Undercover cameras have captured a dairy farmer violently, and repeatedly, hitting cows with various weapons including a steel pipe. SAFE says this case highlights the serious failings of New Zealand’s animal welfare enforcement since the perpetrator was previously investigated by the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) in 2017. Farmwatch investigators...

Undercover cameras have captured a dairy farmer violently, and repeatedly, hitting cows with various weapons including a steel pipe. SAFE says this case highlights the serious failings of New Zealand’s animal welfare enforcement since the perpetrator was previously investigated by the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) in 2017. Farmwatch investigators gathered...

SAFE and Farmwatch are appalled that the same Waikato piggery found to have been housing starving and injured pigs in 2014 was allowed to continue operating after charges were laid by the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI). The piggery was later the subject of a Farmwatch investigation in 2015 where...

SAFE and Farmwatch are appalled that the same Waikato piggery found to have been housing starving and injured pigs in 2014 was allowed to continue operating. In 2014, at Waikato piggery Kaimai Pork Limited, piglets were found living in their own excrement, without enough food and without adequate care for...

Bobby calves in New Zealand are a sacrificial animal who are slain at  the altar of the economy. We kill them so that their mothers’ milk may  flow, and we can have a thriving dairy market. A bobby calf is the  progeny a dairy cow who is deliberately bred from...

International Day of Awareness shows Governments not doing enough. In April this year, shocking new footage was released of horrific conditions on board live export shipments from Australia causing further upset worldwide regarding what was already a controversial trade. Today, 14 June, has been chosen to mark this year’s global Stop...

A number of reports have been released recently on food production, the latest report titled ‘The Evolution Of Plant Protein’ is a collaboration between The Ministry for Primary Industries and Plant & Food Research that compares animal protein to plant-based protein. The innovative report details the limits animal protein production...

A new report, released today, shows the use of farrowing crates are  unnecessary, illegal and harmful to New Zealand pigs. SAFE is presenting  Parliament with copies of the report, as part of an ongoing campaign to  ban farrowing crates, used in pig factory farming. The report, authored by Professor of...

A new report, released today, shows the use of farrowing crates are unnecessary, illegal and harmful to New Zealand pigs. SAFE is presenting Parliament with copies of the report, as part of our ongoing campaign to ban farrowing crates, used in pig factory farming. The report, authored by Professor of...

Another slaughterhouse worker has finally been convicted following the 2015 dairy investigation by Farmwatch and SAFE that horrified New Zealanders and caused controversy internationally. The man, from Down Cow Ltd, was filmed via hidden camera dragging days’ old dairy calves across a concrete floor by their legs, and has been...