Ministerial Inquiry Into Free Range Pork

The inquiry follows a recent Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) report condoning the practice, by some intensive pork farmers, of marketing pork as free range when the pig had lived outdoors for less than the first four weeks of its life.

The ACCC report cited consumer confusion over the difference between "free range" and "free range bred" as the reason for the inquiry.

The inquiry, instigated by Sydney Mayor, Clover Moore (an avowed animal rights activist), follows a campaign by the Free Range Pork Farmers Association, a small group of free range pork farmers who have established a charter and certification for best practice free range pork rearing.

FRPFA spokesperson and free range pork farmer, Lee McCosker, said the vast majority of consumers the association surveyed were astounded that there was no standard definition for free range pork. "They automatically assume it's regulated, like organic certification," McCosker said.

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