Farmers need to pull their weight on biosecurity
Eradication is the goal but there is still a lot MPI need to know so they need everyone's help.
A few weeks ago I was asked what my thoughts were regarding the whole Mycoplasma bovis subject that gripped the dairy industry last July after being detected on a farm in the South Island.
I said I didn’t have an opinion because at the time, Geoff and I hadn’t been to a meeting to hear about it from the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI), however I had been reading lots of material surrounding the subject from all corners and continue to do so. And it’s pretty scary reading to say the least until we went to the meeting in our local hall when our turn came to hear it from MPI.
Now I’m no rocket scientist but I’m not a complete idiot either, so after hearing what has gone on, what is currently being done and what will tentatively go on after the first round of testing is complete, this is my opinion. M. bovis is a bacterium that causes disease in cattle.
It does not infect people and it does not present any food safety concerns. M. bovis does not affect meat or milk product and carries no health risk in these products when consumed.
That was a huge one for me personally to get my head around when the news first broke about the cows being slaughtered going on to be processed for meat.
But instead of getting hysterical, I read up and calmed myself by gathering as much information and understanding as I could. MPI have asked us all as an industry to perform and supply two simple milk samples from cows not being milked into the vat.
This came with straight forward instructions including if you have no ‘‘sick’’ cows at the time your sample is required, you send in the empty pottle. Why? Because that empty pottle sends the clear message to the lab that you have not got a group of cows that aren’t going into the vat.
The beef boys are not being overlooked; however testing service bulls is somewhat problematic given that a throat swab from their tonsils is the only way they can be tested.
Biosecurity is everyone’s issue, not just at the border of our country but also the border of our farms.
If you are buying in cattle or using service bulls, talk to the vendor and ask the hard questions around their health status. Keep a check on who is coming on to your farm. I know lots of people come flying down our driveway, straight past the house and down to the shed.
This is something that shouldn’t happen for health and safety reasons and now is a good time to start enforcing and practising on farm biosecurity, especially with the new dairy season starting in just over twelve weeks.
MPI have developed a downloadable cleaning and disinfection guide to help with any concerns you have about cleaning your shed, equipment and people coming on to your farm.
Eradication is the goal but there is still a lot MPI need to know so they need everyone’s help.
The only way they will find things out is by all of us doing everything we can as an industry and a country to get it sorted. Keep your stock movements up to date.
Yes we all know Nait isn’t foolproof but it is only as good as the data it gets fed.
Stay calm and watch out for anything and anyone that isn’t following the simple requests made of us by MPI to help get this sorted. Somehow, at some time, someone has bucked the system and you know what they say about a system once it’s been bucked. We now need to move forward and learn some stuff along the way.
❚