NZ steps up biosecurity at border

New Zealand is stepping up its biosecurity measures at the border to protect against the risk of the highly contagious foot-and-mouth disease entering the country.

Travellers are now banned from bringing in any meat products from Indonesia, where the disease has spread to the popular holiday destination of Bali following confirmation of an outbreak in April.

‘‘We are taking an extra precaution and stopping travellers from bringing in personal consignments of any meat product,’’ Biosecurity NZ deputy director general Stuart Anderson said yesterday. ‘‘Given the importance of protecting our vital primary sector, this is a good further step to take for now.’’

New Zealand officials have increased checks at airports, and this week introduced disinfectant mats for people returning from Indonesia to clean their footwear. The measures come as Australia also ramps up its border defences after announcing on Wednesday that it had detected the disease in meat products coming into the country from both Indonesia and China.

While New Zealand had no direct flights from Bali or elsewhere in Indonesia, every passenger arrival card was examined and those from countries with foot-and-mouth disease, including Indonesia, were directed to a different process of questioning, baggage search and disinfection, to cover the risk from passengers who transited at other airports, said Biosecurity and Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor.

New Zealand has never had footand-mouth disease, which causes lesions and lameness in cloven hoofed animals, and while the risk remained very low, it was higher than it had been for some time given it had been detected closer to home, said Westpac senior agri economist Nathan Penny.

The disease is considered the single biggest threat to New Zealand’s livestock industries, according to Biosecurity NZ’s foot-and-mouth disease response and recovery plan. An outbreak in the United Kingdom in 2001 saw 10 million animals culled and cost an estimated 10 billion pounds (NZ$19b).

Penny said if foot-and-mouth disease was detected on a New Zealand farm, it could shut down the country’s two biggest exports, dairy and meat, for months or even years. The exports were worth about $28b in the year to June, he said.

‘‘That’s a massive, massive chunk of exports at risk. The potential impact of foot-and-mouth would be very big, and very bad,’’ Penny said. ‘‘It’s a risk to our key export industries so we do need to stop and pay attention and make sure we’re doing all the right things at the border.’’

In 2014, the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) modelled the impact of a foot-and-mouth outbreak on a lifestyle property in Taranaki in September. It estimated export meat slaughter could stop for 10 months and dairy production would cease in the North Island for the remainder of the season.

While a country was officially considered free of foot-and-mouth three months after the last infected animals were killed, it could take longer to restart trade, the report noted.

Millions of animals that would otherwise have been slaughtered would have to be destroyed for animal welfare or disease control purposes by their owners, the report said. ‘‘The regions with large meat and dairy sectors would be really, really struggling,’’ Penny said.

‘‘It would potentially mean a recession. The economy as a whole would go backwards.’’