Venison ‘not really meat’

Press, 13 May 1989, Page 2

Venison ‘not really meat’

By

JOHN HARFORD

A proposed reclassification of • venison could be “financially and politically disastrous” for the deer industry, says the president of the Deer Farmers’ Association, Mr James Guild. He told the association’s annual conference in Invercargill yesterday that the Ministry of Agriculture was planning to relcassify venison as meat, instead of game. Mr Guild said the association believed the Ministry would suggest there was insufficient reason for legislative protection to distinguish between meat and game. The immediate effect would be that venison would be subject to the same quotas and tariffs as lamb and beef in overseas markets. Preliminary calculations showed that could reduce the venison schedule by $1 a kilograme and bring a $4 million loss in earnings to venison producers in the first year. The association had sought to separate itself from the traditional meat industry because of the “attitudes and inefficiencies so prevalent there.” The game classification had allowed New Zealand to create farm-raised venison as a new product.

“We have been able to position if as a gourmet food internationally, clearly disinguished from meat,” he said.