Four Lessons from the big call
That was a courageous decision.
Monday’s commitment by the government to spend $886 million on the chance of eradicating Mycoplasma bovis is a big call.
Mycoplasma bovis is a particularly nasty disease. It’s a cause of calf pneumonia and cow diseases including mastitis, arthritis, eye infections and infertility. Infected animals may slowly deteriorate, become chronically ill, or die.
Or they may become carriers, infecting animals that are more susceptible.
Mycoplasma is not to be confused with Mycobacteria. Mycobacterium is a genus of over 190 species that includes tuberculosis and leprosy in humans.
These diseases are under control so there is no reason to imagine that Mycoplasmas cannot be controlled if eradication fails.
And there are no concerns regarding human consumption of meat or milk from Mycoplasma bovis infected cattle.
The ‘‘Myco’’ part of the name refers to organisms that are classified as fungi, an historically-erroneous classification as Mycoplasma are a bacterium.
The ‘‘plasma’’ part refers to lacking a cell wall which makes this organism immune to common antibacterials like penicillin.
The ‘‘bovis’’ part of the name means it affects only cattle
Most Mycoplasmas are specific to a particular species, bovines for example, although there is evidence that interspecies transmission does occur.
Even us humans have our own Mycoplasma - M. pnumoniea. So Mycoplasmas are a part of our natural world and have been present in our international trading partners for over 20 years. What then, is the issue? It’s economic impact should it get established, is the issue.
Dairy contributes $7.8 billion to New Zealand’s GDP with total beef and veal receipts valued at $3.23 billion.
If the rate of infection experienced in Ireland (up to 20% of animals) happened here, we are exposed to huge economic losses, which makes the estimated cost of eradication, acceptable.
But this, to me, is only one of four benefits to this big call. Second is that the call to eradicate M. bovis was taken collectively by the Government and farming sector bodies.
This co-operative style of governance contrasts appealing to the previous government’s autocratic style. Third is that the call was made after months of intense modelling and analysis to understand the likely impacts of the disease.
Again, this different style of rational pragmatism contrasts appealingly with the previous government’s political pragmatism.
Lastly, there is no point in trying to control M. bovis unless we control the importation of the causative agents. Ireland for example, did not have the disease until Great Britain joined the European Community.
Now it is a permanent toll on their economy. So fourth is that our Ministry of Primary Industry must now awaken and take their responsibilities more seriously to avoid another Kiwifruit-type disaster. Or worse.