Trade Me has announced today that livestock sales and livestock feed sales will be permitted while New Zealand is at
COVID-19 alert level 4 after concerns were raised about animal welfare during lockdown.
Head of Marketplace Lisa Stewart said Trade Me had worked with both Federated Farmers and the Ministry for Primary
Industries (MPI) to understand this issue. “With typical public livestock sales closed due to the lockdown, farmers are
restricted in how they sell their livestock at this busy time of year.
“There is an animal welfare issue at stake, farmers need to move stock if they won’t have enough feed for the coming
months.
“Trade Me is a registered essential seller with MPI, so we are able to provide this service to farmers. We hope this
will help them to move and buy the animals they need during the lockdown.”
Federated Farmers Meat & Wool Chair Miles Anderson said the Trade Me platform will be useful for farmers.
“We’ve got pretty much a perfect storm of factors impacting animal feed – the COVID-19 complications, drought in many
parts of the country and under-powered meat processing capability due to lockdown restrictions. Opening up Trade Me to
livestock sales and livestock feed sales gives farmers another option to deal with some of the issues they’re facing,”
Mr Anderson said.
Trade Me is also opening up a number of other farming, forestry and industry categories, which will allow members to buy
and sell other approved essentials.
Ms Stewart said that the safety of their members continued to be their top priority. “Cash sales will not be permitted
and we’ll be asking our buyers and sellers to abide by our COVID-19 safe trading guidelines at all times.
“Anyone who is not following our rules will be suspended from our site.”