Disease-infected farms may be named

Farmers whose cattle have have been infected by the disease Mycoplasma bovis may lose their anonymity.

Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor said he had asked officials to review the policy of not naming the farms.

‘‘Previous advice is that privacy law prevents us from naming those farms, but I think it could be a useful tool so other farmers can put up their hands and say ‘I bought stock from that property’. It could help the tracking and tracing process,’’ he said in a statement.

Speculation was rife about the identity of the farmer where the disease was first detected on July 21. It took the media a week to unearth the fact the farm belonged to South Canterbury’s Aad and Wilma van Leeuwen.

O’Connor’s rethink comes as officials are also reviewing their strategy on dealing with the disease now that it has been discovered in the North Island and Southland.

Ministry of Primary Industries director of response Geoff Gwyn said on Wednesday there would be no more culling until officials understood the implications of the new finds. MPI has culled 3500 cattle to try to contain the disease and tracking from the infected properties continues.

The disease has now been detected on 12 farms, with a ‘‘strongly suspected’’ property in Ashburton.

O’Connor called together industry leaders to emphasise the need for ‘‘absolute’’ adherence to animal movement requirements. Farmers keeping accurate records of stock movements was a vital part of halting the spread of the disease.

Waikato Federated Farmers meat and fibre chairman Chris Irons has placed the blame squarely on farmers for making it difficult to trace the disease, by not complying with the National Animal Identification and Tracing (Nait) scheme.

‘‘Nait currently does a good job of tracking animals that are registered and all their movements recorded on the database. But the system is only as good as the data put into it,’’ he wrote on the Stuff website.