Whakatipu Heihei, Poaka, Kararehe hoki Poultry, Pigs and other livestock farming

With over 150 layer farms, Aotearoa produces around 1 billion eggs every year, selling roughly $286 million worth of eggs. On average, New Zealanders eat nearly 240 eggs per person per year. The Poultry Meat industry has 180 farms around the country and all New Zealand’s poultry is raised in barns or free-range.

In 2021 there were over 632,150 pigs (equating to around 44,930 tonnes) killed for local production. Around 66% of production is in the South Island and 34% in the North Island.

The Poultry, Pigs and Other Livestock industry group is relatively small in Aotearoa. In 2021, we counted 5,340 people in the Poultry, Pigs and Other Livestock workforce, with 19% of the workforce identifying as Māori. Export revenue for the industry is small, with most of the pork consumed by New Zealanders coming from overseas. In fact, imported pork comes from over 25 countries and constitutes around 60% of the pork consumed in Aotearoa. This is a challenge for the local industry, especially when the price of imported pork is cheaper, and the local industry is held to higher animal welfare standards than imported pork.

The biggest challenge for the industry currently is changes to government regulations around animal welfare. The Pork industry is awaiting an outcome on the government’s proposed Code of Welfare for Pigs, which would change the rules around use of farrowing crates for sows. A change to the Animal Welfare (Layer Hens) Code of Welfare came into effect on 1 January 2023, which banned layer farms from using conventional cages. This has been compounded by a variety of factors, including the country’s two major supermarket chains phasing out the sale of colony cage eggs, and moving to only selling free-range and barn eggs.

Find out about our work to assess the quality of programmes delivered by providers for this industry here.

A snapshot of the Poultry, Pigs and other livestock farming workforce development plan is available for download here. Please note that this reflects a point in time (July 2024). The most up to date information is on the workforce development plans website.