Is Your Farm on the Map?

ANIMAL rights group Aussie Farms have published an interactive map of farms and animal industry facilities in Australia, including many in the Upper Hunter.

Local dairy farms, horse studs, piggeries, egg farms and the abattoir are listed with many other farms identified and yet to have more detail on their operation added by their supporters.

Their supporters are encouraged to upload photos, videos, documents and news on each farm listed on the map and contribute information on more farms.

James Jackson, president of NSW Farmers said they were encouraging farmers to lodge a complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner if their farm is listed on the map and are lobbying to have the group deregistered as a charity.

“We are very concerned about it as everyone else is…on their website they ask their volunteers if they are happy to be arrested or not,” said Mr Jackson.

“It’s obscene that people are being targeted and it’s inferred that they are involved in animal cruelty and it’s essentially giving people a road map to go and invade these farms and compromise their security and their bio-security,” he said.

“Potentially this could lead to very poor animal welfare outcomes, so we are absolutely aghast at this, it’s disgraceful,” James Jackson said.

Mr Jackson said the implications of the general public trespassing on land was dangerous for both animals and people adding there are already independent organisations  responsible for ensuring animal welfare which cases of suspected cruelty should be reported to.

“We’ve long held the belief that we should be transparent with what we do and we have independently governed assurance programs that guarantee certain practices are upheld on the properties,” he said.

“The reason you can’t have people wondering around making independent verification is there are all sorts of bio-security implications, trespass and there’s risk to the people who come on and it’s likely they’ll get taken apart by a bull,” he said.

“You can’t have the general public wondering around these workplaces because it is quite dangerous for both the animals and the people,” he said.

Mr Jackson drew the distinction between animal welfare groups and animal liberation groups and was critical of their immoral methods which could lead to cruelty.

“The recent example of paying for the live video, we’re not against bringing issues to light and having transparency, but why we complained about the video was the moral hazard it creates if you pay vulnerable workers large amounts of money for videos, it potentially creates a situation where they generate the crisis, it’s a classic moral hazard that can create animal cruelty,” he said.

“I’m not saying there’s never a case of animal cruelty in NSW but in a general sense we have quite a good culture of looking after our animals – the best in the world in fact and I’ve been all ’round the plant looking at production systems and given the circumstances that we farm in I think our systems are probably the best on the planet,” he said.

“Even during the drought, there are some animals which have been let go too far, but it is surprisingly small people do act they either get hay or they sell them off before they get into trouble,” he said.

“These people are vegans, they’re not about animal welfare, they’re about animal liberation and it’s not the same thing,” James Jackson said.

If you do suspect animal cruelty it can be reported to the RSPCA.

scone.com.au contacted Aussie Farms for comment, but they did not return any messages and have no listed phone contact.