Get in the frontline for the war on pests
New Zealand is under attack and an Agresearch scientist has called on farmers to get in the frontline to help repel the invaders.
Insects, nematodes, bacteria and pest plants are causing ‘‘hundreds, if not thousands, of millions of dollars every year in costs and lost production,’’ John Kean, Senior Scientist Biocontrol and Biosecurity, told the Future Farmers conference in Palmerston North earlier this month.
A slide he displayed showed that seven pest invertebrates alone (in descending order of destructiveness - grass grub, black beetle, nematodes, porina, slugs, clover root weevil, Argentine stem weevil) were costing the dairy and sheep and beef industries a combined total of at least $4.4 billion a year.
The costs of Mycoplasmas bovis are at $90 million and climbing. And we still don’t know exactly how it arrived in New Zealand.
It has certainly been a wake-up call to some farmers to step up their own measures to protect their herds and livelihoods, cleaning down machinery and the boots of visitors that come on farm, instituting a buffer zone on perimeter fences, and so on.
Kean told the conference that our border protections, and the layers of biosecurity pursued by MPI and regional councils, are crucial. But a ‘‘step change’’ in this battle could happen when more farmers get more biosecurity-conscious.
One pathway for unwanted pests is airports. Kean and fellow scientists decided to talk a look at several months’ worth of dirt and debris collected at airports from passengers’ boots, shaken out from tents, etc.
The findings? One hundred per cent of samples contained living bacteria, at an average of 30 million per gram, and 16 per cent of the samples had bacteria from taxa on MPI hit lists.
‘‘For fungi, it was a similar story. Half of the samples contained live seeds, a lot of them [seeds] we specifically don’t want in New Zealand. A million live seeds would come through the border each year if MPI were not scraping shoes.’’
Kean said nematodes and even live mites were ‘‘pouring in’’.
That’s just airport arrivals. Unwanted invaders also ride on used machinery, stock feed, seeds for sowing, golf bags – ‘‘have you ever seen what can accumulate in the bottom of golf bags? Disgusting!’’.
As more of us turn to on-line shopping, the ‘‘packaging pathway’’ for bacteria is a growing concern.
A nematode has taken hold at Hagley Oval in Christchurch following an international cricket tournament.
‘‘Nematodes are really hard to control and this one damages pasture, so watch this space on that one.’’
Kean listed incursions where we’ve had success, often because government agencies, farmers and the wider community pulled together to take action – pea weevil in the Wairarapa; the great white butterfly in Nelson, hydatids tapeworm.
All of us farmers need to listen to Kean’s advice on stepping up our own biosecurity.
Have a plan, and make sure your family, your staff, your farm visitors know about it. If you have international visitors, don’t let them go out on your property until they have washed their clothes.
Agriculture has upped its game on Health and Safety, so Kean suggests bundling that together with Biosecurity in terms of warning signage, induction training and accountability.
-Te Aroha farmer Andrew McGiven is president Waikato Federated Farmers