Source: SAFE For Animals
SAFE has launched a major new campaign calling for an end to factory farming in Aotearoa, backed by a public petition and a nationwide advertising campaign exposing the reality of intensive animal farming.
At least 128 million land animals are factory farmed in New Zealand each year, confined in systems that severely restrict movement, limit essential behaviours, and expose animals to injury, disease, chronic stress, and deprivation. Many are selectively bred for rapid growth or high production at the expense of their health, while painful procedures are used to manage the welfare problems that intensive systems create.
SAFE Campaign Manager Emma Brodie says factory farming is a systemic problem that demands a systemic solution.
“Factory farming treats extraordinary levels of suffering as business as usual.”
“In 2026, we should be asking whether cages, crates, and crowded sheds really belong in the future of Aotearoa.”
Verian research commissioned by SAFE in 2025 shows 78% of New Zealanders are concerned about the welfare of animals on New Zealand factory farms, while 72% oppose confining animals in factory farms. 88% believe animals should have the freedom to go outside when they want, and 93% believe codes of welfare should be regularly reviewed and updated to reflect the latest animal welfare science and public concerns.
Brodie says factory farming doesn’t persist because New Zealanders don’t care about animals, it persists because most people don’t see it.
“The scale of factory farming in Aotearoa is enormous, but the full picture is still hidden from public view. That distance makes it easier for factory farming to continue unchallenged.”
“Our campaign is about bringing factory farming into the light, challenging the rules and structures that keep it in place, and turning public concern into meaningful change.”
The campaign calls for an independent review of New Zealand’s animal welfare legislative framework, followed by the reforms needed to end factory farming systems.
More than 25 years after the Animal Welfare Act 1999 was enacted, SAFE says the framework is no longer fit for purpose. The law has not kept pace with what we know about animal welfare or addressed intensive farming systems that cause significant harm.
Recent decisions on the regulation of pig and hen farming have reinforced SAFE’s concerns, with the most intensive forms of confinement remaining permitted.
“We don’t have to accept that this is simply how farming works.
“We can choose differently. And we are asking New Zealanders to join us.”
SAFE is calling on New Zealanders to sign its petition and join the campaign to end factory farming in Aotearoa.
SAFE is Aotearoa’s leading animal rights organisation.
We’re creating a future that ensures the rights of animals are respected. Our core work empowers society to make kinder choices for ourselves, animals and our planet.
Notes to the editors
- SAFE’s petition calls for an independent review of New Zealand’s animal welfare legislative framework, followed by the reforms needed to end factory farming systems.
- In December 2025, Parliament passed changes to the Animal Welfare Act that allow the continued use of farrowing crates and mating stalls for mother pigs, reversing a planned phase-out of these systems. The changes followed a 2020 High Court ruling that found the existing regulatory standards permitting their use were unlawful and invalid. Nearly 90% of submissions on the legislation opposed the changes. SAFE opposed the legislation and continues to call for an end to the intensive confinement of mother pigs.
- The Ministry for Primary Industries recently closed consultation on proposed changes to the code of welfare for layer hens. SAFE has raised concerns that the proposed standards fail to address some of the most intensive practices used in the egg industry, including colony cages. The proposal would also allow higher stocking densities in indoor barns, alongside continued routine practices such as beak trimming and the mass killing of male chicks. SAFE’s submission called for stronger action to end factory farming systems and the practices associated with them.