Animals are losing out in this year’s budget, which doesn’t include any additional funding for animal welfare initiatives.

SAFE CEO Debra Ashton said this was a concern considering the stressed Ministry for Primary Industries took over a year to investigate the mass death of 180,000 chickens at an Auckland farm.

"MPI’s animal welfare inspectorate is understaffed and ill-equipped to monitor and enforce our animal welfare laws," said Ashton.

This has to change, which is why we’ve been calling for a Commissioner for Animals to ensure they have a voice in any decisions or policies that Government is making.

The Government has announced that $24 million will be spent on initiatives to reduce emissions from animal agriculture. This will be spent on researching and developing vaccines, methane and nitrous oxide inhibitors, and low-emissions animal breeding.

Ashton said this money would be far better spent on transitioning to regenerative plant-based agriculture.

"Animal agriculture has been proven to be disastrous for our environment and climate. We need to be diversifying away from raising animals for food rather than investing further into these sunset industries."

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