‘Bovis’ meetings follow spread

MORE public meetings are being planned over an increasingly wider area as farmers reveal their shock at Mycoplasma bovis having made its way from Waimate all the way to Hawke’s Bay.

The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) is due to hold a public meeting in Winton, Southland, on December 19 and in Hastings on December 20.

One Hawke’s Bay farmer yesterday told the Hawkes Bay Today newspaper these were ‘‘scary, scary times’’ for the industry.

Earlier this week, the MPI confirmed four more properties had tested positive for the disease.

Three were within a farming enterprise in Winton, one was near Hastings, and the ministry strongly suspected a further property near Ashburton.

Hastings District dairy farmer and rural community board member Nick Dawson said he was very concerned about the situation and did not think the ministry had it under control.

‘‘I think the horse might have bolted here, I can’t see them containing it at the moment but that’s just my personal view,’’ Mr Dawson said.

A ministry spokeswoman said the affected farm — which they would not name — had about 750 cows.

‘‘We do understand community concern about the disease and we are strongly encouraging farmers under controls or investigation to talk to their neighbours, customers and suppliers,’’ she said.

Federated Farmers Hawke’s Bay president Will Foley said he was shocked the disease had spread so far north.

‘‘It’s a real bummer that this has happened and it’s a shock to Hawke’s Bay farmers that it landed in our patch.

‘‘The stock were traced in a movement from the South Island quite some time ago, connected to the Van Leeuwen group where this has all started from, but obviously the stock movement was before they were locked down,’’ Mr Foley said.

‘‘So that’s not a good thing that the stock have been up here for quite some time, but from what we’ve been told from MPI at this stage it has been contained, so hopefully that is the case.’’

Mr Dawson said he hoped he and others would receive answers at the Hastings meeting.

He said he believed the disease had already spread through other parts of the country.

‘‘There could be calves throughout the country infected, and in fact I’m sure there are.’’

‘‘It’s scary, scary times,’’ he said. — Hawkes Bay Today

CONFIRMATION of four more properties with Mycoplasma bovis — including the first in the North Island — surely, and sadly, means the proverbial cat is out of the bag.

As the cull of 4000 cattle from Van Leeuwen Dairy Group properties nears completion, yet the number presumably destined for slaughter continues to rise, the question must be asked — when is enough enough?

Since July, when the disease was first detected on a VLDG farm in the Waimate district, there are now 13 confirmed infected properties and 28 properties under Restricted Place Notices.

The Ministry for Primary Industries has always stated its intention was to contain the bacterial disease and eliminate it.

But as the number of properties affected keeps increasing — and the cost to taxpayers must be skyrocketing into many millions — does the ministry keep on slaughtering cattle? Or does it admit defeat and leave farmers to live with the disease and manage it?

Mycoplasma bovis is commonly found in cattle globally but it has never previously been found in New Zealand.

While, thankfully, it does not infect humans and presents no food safety risk, it can cause mastitis, abortion, pneumonia and arthritis in cattle. The ramifications for farmers — both financially and from the everimportant animal welfare perspective — are huge.

Studies suggest at least 50% of Australian dairy herds are affected by subclinical mastitis, at a cost to their industry of more than $60 million a year. And that is just mastitis.

As the scramble to contain Mycoplasma bovis continues, there are many questions that need answering, including the effectiveness of the National Animal Identification and Tracing Scheme.

The NAIT programme traces the movements of cattle and deer throughout the country. The ministry has acknowledged the programme has fallen short of its expectations and that, if bovis had been a fastmoving disease, there might have been an even more worrying scenario.

That is a frightening thought. As South Otago farmer Ross Clark said this week, if it was footandmouth disease that had arrived in New Zealand, it might now be a complete disaster for the country.

It is also disturbing that Mr Clark — who is directly affected by the disease by virtue of buying stock which originally came from VLDG — says it appears ‘‘the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing’’ when it comes to the ministry.

This week, the ministry said tracing animals and their movements was ‘‘complex detective work’’ which took time. But surely that is why the NAIT programme was introduced, which should make it a fairly straightforward process.

The outbreak is a serious one which is having a huge impact on people’s livelihoods and wellbeing.

It is not just the immediately affected who are suffering; there are also farmers beyond in the community whose businesses are hurting. Presumably, compen sation will not be available to those farmers, yet they have been unable to sell bulls due to a quirk of geography, living in the same region where Mycoplasma bovis has been detected, sending potential purchasers scuttling elsewhere.

Affected farmers can apply for compensation for ‘‘verifiable’’ losses relating to MPI exercising its legal powers under the Biosecurity Act.

Minister for Agriculture, Food Safety and Biosecurity Damien O’Connor says it is possible further infected properties could be found.

If the cat is not out of the bag, then it is most certainly clawing holes in the side of it which are getting bigger by the day.

Lessons must be learned from this most unfortunate chapter in New Zealand’s agricultural history.