Toward Environmental Sustainability

Actions by New Zealand Deer Farmers

New Zealand deer farmers aspire to  sustainable land management via industry-wide programs to avoid potential negative impacts on the environment. 

New Zealand is blessed with ample rain and vast open pastures.  Farming is a natural use for the landscape, and New Zealanders have been growing livestock and crops for 150 years, with little damage to the soil or water. 

With all farming operations inputs are required to maintain the productivity of the land, and protect animal health and welfare.  New Zealand farmers use Nitrogen to improve pasture fertility, Plant-control of non-native weeds and animal remedies to ensure good health.

In New Zealand, the natural fertility of the soils, the benign climate, and the extensive use of nitrogen fixing clovers in pastures provides much of the goodness necessary to grow pasture to feed farmed deer.

Animal welfare is key to achieving the highest quality products (including Cervena venison), as well as sustainable land management. Deer are never housed in New Zealand, they are never kept in feedlots or confined spaces.  Most deer are farmed in mountainous regions with vast fields stretching over hundreds of acres.  They live on grass and hay.

Every deer farmer has a duty to avoid, remedy or mitigate any adverse effects that their activities may have on the environment.  When producing food farming impacts the environment in several ways such as soil erosion, water use and degraded water quality.  The New Zealand deer farming industry has an active programme in place to ameliorate these negative impacts by educating farmers and recognising success in minimising environmental impact.

Venison processing companies and their farmer suppliers work in partnership with international customers to produce quality products to high environmental standards. All processing companies in New Zealand have on-farm assurance programmes in place which monitor animal health and welfare, and environmental impact of their farming operations.