MPI urges farmers to report high-risk stock

The Ministry for Primary industries is urging farmers who have bought cattle or feed from farms infected with Mycoplasma bovis to contact them immediately.

Ministry director of response Geoff Gwynn said the ministry was accelerating its tracing and surveillance program so that a decision whether to proceed with culling could be made as soon.

The ministry needs to hear from any farmers who have bought cows, calves or milk for calf feed from infected farms.

The ministry was especially interested to hear from people who have received cattle or calves from Southern Centre Dairies Limited after January 1, 2016.

A ministry spokeswoman said there was no end date yet for the testing of cattle in Southland.

‘‘We have not completed the tracing of animal movements from known infected farms so we can’t speculate on how many further farms we will need to undertake testing on.’’

‘‘The Ministry remains committed to its position that decisions on eradication will be made once the results of the national surveillance (milk testing) programme are in.’’

Clutha-Southland MP Hamish Walker said the country was now at the critical point for eradicating M Bovis.

If biosecurity minister Damien O’Connor did not act with urgency, the fight to eradicate the disease would be lost, Walker said.

‘‘The Minister needs to beg his cabinet colleagues for additional resources to eradicate M Bovis and also come clean around compensation. M Bovis is causing huge amounts of stress and worry in Southland and it is the earthquake of farming.’’

O’Connor said cabinet had been positive in terms of the approach to this challenging issue.

Additional efforts and resources had been poured into the task in recent weeks, he said. ‘‘Eradication is still the focus.’’ Decisions would need to be made by the end of March, O’Connor said.

Farmers can contact the Ministry’s confidential freephone on 0800 80 99 66.