ELDERS FAKED DAIRY EXPORT CERTIFICATES FOR NZ CATTLE TO CHINA

New Zealand's Livestock Investment Corporation was apparently "extremely disappointed" to learn Elders had allegedly altered certificates of thousands of NZ cattle destined for export to China.

Farm Weekly reported that an independent investigation revealed the pedigree certificates for thousands of dairy cattle from New Zealand were altered by Elders employees from 2010 to 2013. These breeding cattle were exported to China. The alleged forgeries included using software to change PDF documents from NZ's LIC, which keeps a nationwide database of the pedigree of all registered cattle in New Zealand.

An investigation found this involved:
- changing the F status (an indication of cattle quality) of cattle to F12 or better.
- adding missing sire and/or dam details for three generations to satisfy China's Ministry of Agriculture requirements.
- adding or manipulating the age of animals.

The PPB investigation said it was unclear how long Holstein Australia was being provided with false information, but did state Elders had entered "approximately 30 dairy export contracts with Chinese customers" in the six years prior to 2014.

Apparently, Federal Agriculture Minister Murray Watt has moved to head off concern among Australia's trading partners over the alleged fraud. But how can he? The Department cant vouch for exporters. Is it possible that Elders did this in order to remain competitive in an unethical industry. However, we will never know how widespread (or not) the practice was as it is likely only Elders that has the auditing processes in place to enable this to come to light.