The New South Wales Farmers Association is raising howl that the Australian pork industry would eventually die out should major supermarkets such as Coles would sustain its current policy of forbidding pork from pigs being raised in sow stalls.

Coles earlier said that its fresh pork producers are set to phase out the use of sow stalls, which are metal cages being utilised to confine animals on their 16-week pregnancy period, by next year with an eventual goal of a total ban by the latter part of 2014.

However, the association decried the policy for its apparent focus on the local industry as group representative Malcolm Gett stressed that Australia's pork industry would be hit hard since the planned prohibition would not be enforced on international suppliers.

Mr Gett argued that the supermarket sector should impose their new policy on equal bases and "if they're going to demand that we have no dry sow stalls, then the same conditions should be applied to all imported pork so we can compete better with them."

On its part, Coles maintained that suppliers were well aware that Australian consumers were demanding and fully supportive of the new policy as company representative Allister Watson admitted that "they're saying that there would be some costs and they want a transition period to work through those costs and we're working through those costs with them."

Mr Watson gave assurance that Coles is ready to foot some of the bill to be incurred from the proposed transition but "certainly we won't be passing them onto the customers and all our suppliers are positive."