The legal battle against allowing uncooked pork imports into the country has cost levy-paying pig farmers about $1.8 million, the Pork Industry Board says.
The board challenged the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) decision to allow imports of some uncooked pork products from countries with the pig disease Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS). For the past 12 years, imported pork meat has had to be cooked, thereby killing off the disease.
The pig industry argues the disease could arrive in New Zealand in raw pork and took the fight all the way to the Supreme Court, which rejected its final appeal.
New Zealand Pork chairman Ian Carter said a new import standard was in force and the industry would have to work with the ministry to make best of it.
The board was disappointed its appeal had not been upheld but was talking to MPI about how to how to manage potential risks, the North Otago pig farmer said.
"We still have grave concerns as an industry body around the risk, and the risk it exposes our industry to in New Zealand."
Discussions with MPI would have to focus on the waste food regulations, Mr Carter said.
The pork industry regarded the greatest risk of PRRS escaping as being through pigs being fed infected, uncooked pork collected from restaurants and other food outlets.
"There's a whole number of mitigation measures that MPI and the industry are working together to understand and manage around the way food regulations, around the volume of product, and understanding the risk levels in those areas, which largely is where the two parties haven't agreed," he said.
Consumers could help reduce the risk by buying only New Zealand-produced pig meat products.
