Former MP’s M bovis nightmare
Former MP Eric Roy has been swept up in the Mycoplasma bovis nightmare, with testing being carried out on one of his farms.
Roy, a National MP who spent nearly two decades at Parliament, owns deer, sheep and dairy farms in Te Anau, Southland and Central Otago.
The Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI) is insisting on testing his stock after an animal he bought in 2016 was linked to a farm that tested positive for the cattle disease outbreak this year.
Roy says the chances of his farm being infected are slim, but a lockdown means he can’t sell his breeding bulls.
Officials have just completed a second round of tests at the farm, and the results are five to six weeks away.
Roy said MPI hadn’t shared the first round of results with him. He wouldn’t say which of his farms was affected.
‘‘We are working with MPI – I’m one of many in that position. I don’t really want to draw any more attention to myself until the tests are done and we know what the results are. The chances of me having it is extremely remote, in my calculation.’’
As with many farmers, the biosecurity procedures has put Roy in a quandary. He has breeding bulls to sell but MPI has put the farm under a notice of direction which means stock can’t be moved without prior approval. ‘‘It is a bit of an imposition to me.’’
He’s also worried the publicity will put off potential buyers: ‘‘Because I am selling bulls to dairy farmers and they are as twitchy as anything.’’
Roy would be compensated if the stock must be culled, but the breeding bulls were worth considerably more than those sent to slaughter. ‘‘At the moment I am just sitting and waiting.
‘‘I don’t want to [send them to the works], but I don’t want to hold on to them. These animals are worth far more as breeding [stock] as they are in the works.’’
Roy said MPI took a ‘‘precautionary approach to risk’’ but was frustrated it took so long to implement the testing.
‘‘In 2016, an animal I bought at Lorneville [livestock saleyards] was supposed to have come here ... They identified the source and then, 18 months after I purchased the animal, that farm tested positive. They don’t know when that farm was positive and they don’t know how many animals.
‘‘I don’t even know which one [animal] it was. We might buy a hundred or so at a time at Lorneville like that.
‘‘They haven’t told me which farm or which animal or whatever, but that’s irrelevant now because the animal has well and truly been processed through the freezing works, as has every animal that has been on the place since then.’’