Primary production of food

‘Primary production’ refers to the first stage of food production.

Primary production includes

• production of dairy and eggs
• beef cattle husbandry
• fishing and fish farming
• farming of vegetables, fruit, cereal and mushrooms
• honey production
• picking wild berries and mushrooms
• hunting.

However, primary production does not include

• processing the products, such as making cheese or jams, peeling vegetables, cleaning the fish on land or filleting the fish
• transporting milk away from the primary production site
• slaughtering animals.

The Environmental Health Services must be notified of primary production operations. The operator must also notify the authorities of substantial changes to the operations, the operations being paused, or the operations being ceased.

However, you do not need to submit a notification of primary production for:

• hunting
• handing wild game to consumers as a product of primary production (unskinned or unplucked)
• picking wild plants or mushrooms
• the primary production of plants and mushrooms if the operator is a private individual and the operations cannot be seen as a business.