Agriculture Minister David Carter has ordered an investigation into the conduct of some of his staff after complaints of "bullying" and "inappropriate behaviour" while investigating 21 Southland dairy farms.
Farmers claim Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry staff have entered farms unannounced on the pretence of animal welfare inspections, but farmers accuse them of intimidating workers, including ordering workers out of dairy sheds during milking.
The allegations were levelled at Mr Carter yesterday before he addressed Federated Farmers' annual conference in Invercargill and, after meeting farming leaders, he said their concerns were genuine.
"Frankly, if their behaviour is inappropriate, then that is unacceptable," he said of the Maf inspectors.
There was some confusion yesterday whether the visits were prompted by public allegations of animal mistreatment, but the federation's Southland vice-president and dairy farmer, Peter Phiskie, said that appeared not to be the case. Rather, Maf was "cold calling".
After hearing of the visits last month, he called Maf in Invercargill to ask what was happening, and said two hours later Maf inspectors visited his farm.
The federation's dairy section chairman, Lachlan McKenzie, said there had been no prosecutions and an inspection of livestock on those farms by farmers showed no animal welfare issues.
"Using farmer experience, all the cases that we know about, in our professional opinion, there is no animal welfare issues."
Mr McKenzie said farmers were angry at the approach taken by Maf, which he described as "bullying".
It also threatened the department's credibility and the working relationship with the federation, especially the organisation's role assisting Maf with animal welfare cases.
Mr Carter said after meeting farmers yesterday, in principle it appeared the approach was "over-zealous", but he wanted to hear both sides of the story.
Extra funding was provided in the budget for animal welfare monitoring, but Mr Carter said he had not given a directive to Maf officers to cold-call farms, nor had he given them extra powers.