Eradication cost may be too high

Elsewhere, farmers have learned to live with the disease. In Australia, where systems are closer to New Zealand than elsewhere, about 3.5 per cent of herds have been affected.

Has the Mycoplasma bovis horse (or cow) bolted? Many would say so, as the Government and its advisers decide whether to plump for the ‘‘full’’ eradication option.

Up until last week Ministry for Primary Industry (MPI) officials had kept up the full eradication mantra.

But then they admitted that in one week everything had changed, as the number of farms under question leaped from 129 to 299. It is expected that at least a third of those will prove to be infected, to add to the 44 already known.

Head of Biosecurity NZ Roger Smith said he could guarantee M. bovis could be eradicated but it would likely mean the end of the dairy industry and a massive bill to carry out the programme.

Besides the financial cost, a wholesale cull would have an enormous social and psychological impact on a sector that already has a higher suicide rate than in urban areas. Farmers have also invested into improved animal genetics, which would be lost.

Federated Farmers president Katie Milne worries that perfectly healthy cows are being killed needlessly because they have been in contact with infected cows.

Some say Mycoplasma is a test for New Zealand and by totally eradicating it we would demonstrate that other more serious diseases such as foot and mouth could be stamped out if they arrived.

But elsewhere, farmers have learned to live with the disease. In Australia, where systems are closer to New Zealand than elsewhere, about 3.5 per cent of herds have been affected.

Andrew Goold, a Kiwi farmer now living in Australia, has a herd of 1000. When Mycoplasma was discovered in some, his veterinarian told him he had to cull hundreds, but in the end he slaughtered only 20.

If the focus shifted to containing the disease, it could be treated as bovine tuberculosis is. The cost is high – more than $50 million a year by controlling pests such as possums which infect cattle – but the disease is now confined to a handful of farms.

Politicians have not been slow to respond but they risk turning the issue into a political football.

When he was running MPI, former minister Nathan Guy never missed an opportunity to remind people that biosecurity was his No 1 priority, and yet under his watch New Zealand’s most serious disease incursion has occurred.

Under Damien O’Connor, the new Government has created the standalone agency Biosecurity NZ within MPI.

The need for a sharper focus is evident: since

2008 there have been more than 150 biosecurity incursions, including major ones such as M. bovis, pea weevil, velvet leaf, the marmorated stink bug, an oyster parasite, and myrtle rust.

However it arrived in the country, the advent of Mycoplasma has been a wake-up call, especially to farmers who have wilfully ignored tagging their animals since the system was set up in 2012.

If foot and mouth were to enter the country it would be catastrophic to the economy. MPI estimates export losses of $14.4 billion, spending of

1.17b on eradication, and livestock compensation for infected properties of $30.8m.