“There are a lot of holes in the information and we would all like to see MPI up the game a bit so we will see if we can get that improved,” Waimate District mayor Craig Rowley told farmers as he closed a second community meeting on Wednesday.
He acknowledged it was clear the Ministry for Primary Industries was struggling to get enough tests done and from the number of questions at the meeting farmers needed answers urgently.
The bacterial infection M bovis, not previously seen in New Zealand but notified on a South Canterbury dairy farm on July 25, had now been identified on two properties owned by the van Leeuwen dairy group that ran 16 farms, including two housed barn operations, in the area.
Cattle could be moved only within the van Leeuwen farms or transported to slaughter only by approved carriers.
At a second meeting at Papakaio near Oamaru ministry staff told nearly 200 farmers it was under-resourced to move as quickly as they would have liked to get results out.
While all the van Leeuwen farms were under Restricted Place Notices, testing of cows was limited to what could be handled by a single laboratory in Wellington.
There were 16 farms effectively in lockdown, 10 days on and there were no signs anywhere on the properties to identify them. That was a serious concern for farmers.
But MPI said signs were being made and expected to be up very soon.
MPI regional response controller Murray Pridham said what needed to be clear was that MPI’s focus was on eradicating the disease.
“To clear up confusion over containment and eradication – MPI is focused on getting rid of this thing and containing is the best focus.
“Containment is a method of achieving the level of eradication we are aiming to achieve,” Pridham said.
Because M bovis had been found on a second property it did not mean it was spreading.
“It’s what we expected, no surprises,” he said.
A full incursion response led from national headquarters in Wellington was under way with a regional field office opened in Oamaru.
There were 60 staff, including contractors, working exclusively on the response.
“Through testing, surveillance, tracing and investigation we continue to build the picture.”
Priority testing included farms that might have got cows from the van Leeuwen farms.
That was just a small number of farms and they were not publicly identified or under lockdown.
“Sampling and testing was comprehensive and took time,” Pridham said.
Special lab equipment was needed and initially that meant MPI had access to just one laboratory in Wellington but efforts were being made to get more involved, including getting Fonterra on board.
“We have been under-resourced in that respect but with more labs coming on board more testing will come on stream in due course and we will be able to move ahead with more results.”
Pridham said there was no answer to how long it would take to get results.
With just two positive results from 29 tests, MPI animal health lab specialist incursion investigator Tom Rawdon said negative tests were more difficult to prove and required considerably more work.
“Proving a negative needs considerably more work because a negative is intricately hard to be certain about.
“We have been precautionary about getting negative results out at the moment – we need to re-test those negatives,” Rawdon said.
MPI was testing for bacteria on all van Leeuwen group farms and would progress to neighbouring farms once those were completed.
Rawdon said it was “quite likely” there would more farms infected.
When questioned if NAIT was working Rawdon said it was a very important component in traceability.
“But you don’t have to have NAIT within a 20 kilometre radius so we are relying on farm records and sitting down with farm managers and owners to trace back within that 20km.”
And NAIT was only a guide.
“We have got this issue with the 20km radius – we need to get a lot better with NAIT as a nation, at this stage it’s only working at 40%,” he said.
The ministry said it was satisfied its response measures would contain any spread.
Meantime, MPI advised farmers it was up to them to make their own commercial decisions about stock movements and buying calves because there was no answer to what risk there would be with only the van Leeuwen farms in lockdown.
There were also no restrictions on stock going through the Temuka saleyards.
