Farmers’ stress over cattle disease
The distress of battling Mycoplasma bovis and trying to keep a multimillion-dollar farm business has been laid to bare in emails between the Van Leeuwen Dairy Group (VLG) and the Ministry for Primary Industries.
The strain VLG owners Aad and Wilma van Leeuwen were under as they battle to eradicate the cattle disease while saving their farm business during, at times, a tense relationship with the MPI was shown in the release of more than 250 pages of documents released under the Official Information Act. Parts of the documents were heavily redacted for privacy or commercial reasons.
The van Leeuwens own 16 farms in North Otago. The disease was discovered on one of their farms on July 21 last year and has since spread to 24 properties.
M bovis causes cattle mastitis, lameness, pneumonia and abortions. Once a cow is infected, it cannot be cured.
An email sent from MPI to a person associated with VLG detailed a request to meet and discuss how the disease may have arrived on the VLG farm ‘Tainui’. The person told MPI they were unable to attend until later that month. When pressed, the writer wrote: ‘‘You have provided us with another tiring answer. We have been so many times over this so what is the point. I am sorry our time is now fully devoted to saving somehow our farming business which has pretty well been ruined.’’ Other blacked out emails showed nearby farmers who were ‘‘about to go broke’’. The van Leeuwens said working with MPI had at times, been a ‘‘frustrating exercise’’. They said the business and its people had been under enormous mental and financial pressure. VLG’s income had been slashed 25 per cent from livestock being culled and it had incurred extra costs from being locked down on restricted place notices. ‘‘We believe [MPI] have no understanding of a dairy farming business and are unable to organise themselves to complete work in a timely organised manner to satisfy farmers’ timelines.’’
MPI director of readiness and response Geoff Gwyn said that was unfair. Many of the staff involved were veterinarians and MPI had brought in people from organisations such as DairyNZ to assist them. ‘‘I have personally sat in their living room on at least six occasions and spent 12-15 hours with them.’’ Gwyn said he was incredibly empathetic to VLG’s situation.