Cow disease compo beats US lawsuit

So, Mycoplasma bovis has been confirmed in Waikato. I know many farmers up this way will be feeling disappointed, confused and angry that it has spread this far.

Looking at the spread of the disease it almost seems inevitable that it would arrive here.

It’s not a new strain that has just ‘‘popped’’ up out of nowhere but has been detected by using historical animal transfers and stock movements.

A Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI) ‘‘response to date’’ map detailing animal movements connected to what is considered to be the Southland incursion in late 2015 resembles shotgun pellets spread around the country with all the notices of direction and movement control properties (RPs and IPs).

The tracking of the disease has been slow and this, in part, has been due to a poor uptake of the compulsory National Animal Identification and Tracing scheme (Nait).

In fairness to farmers, Nait has not been exactly user-friendly so that has not encouraged farmer engagement. The recent Nait review was long overdue.

What farmers are going to need now is some surety of response and, perhaps more particularly, how that response will be directed.

Until now the focus of MPI has been containment and a push for eradication.

I wonder if this is still a possibility.

Perhaps we need to consider a longer-term eradication policy or even a management regime.

I would envisage a Tb type of policy where the infected animals would be culled but the specific herd be placed on movement control and monitored until the appropriate tests are shown to be clear over time.

Where a farmer is adversely affected compensation needs to be paid promptly, not three or six months down the line as these people and families are operating businesses.

Legislation states that no individual or business should be better or worse off because of MPI’s use of its biosecurity powers (including infected herds and cost of movement controls etc) but it is clear that affected farmers are so far much worse off considering the stress and personal upheavals they are going through.

And to all those media commenters who reckon that the taxpayer shouldn’t be ‘‘bailing out’’ the farmers, just be grateful that we don’t live in America, the land of the law suit.

Farmers have every right to expect our biosecurity to protect our industry from these types of incursions and quite simply the system has failed them.

That’s probably a perfect definition of a class action lawsuit if I’ve ever heard of one.

So, we need better and more accessible information around M. bovis, and we need someone to make the decision as to how we deal with this longer term.

My personal view is that entire herd eradication is too expensive but the rest of the world has it already and seems to manage it appropriately.

Our herds may take a bit of a hit but then the impact would be like Johne’s disease. Who remembers theileria?

Farmers are nothing if not adaptable and given the right information and options we can get through this.

MPI is holding a public meeting on May 25 at the Don Rowlands Events Centre, 601 Maungatautari Rd, Karapiro 3494, from 11-1pm.

Andrew McGiven is the president of Federated Farmers Waikato.