But that doesn’t count the cost of the heartache to them, their workers and community.
When they notified animal health issues in their dairy herd they believed they were doing the right thing for their people, their community, the Government and the wider dairy industry.
Now they are not so sure.
“In fact, to date, the way this response has been managed we feel has caused us and many other farmers in the district to be alienated and if the same circumstances were to recur we would have to seriously reconsider doing what we did,” Aad van Leeuwen said.
“It’s been a three-month nightmare and it’s far from over yet,” the couple said.
The van Leeuwen Dairy Group took in 16 South Canterbury farms in a mix of traditional grass farming and indoor robotic milking.
In July one of the group’s farms was identified with the notifiable disease Mycoplasma bovis that initiated a full Ministry for Primary Industries biosecurity response.
While pretty much the rest of the world already had it, it was a first for NZ.
Looking back over the three months as several of the group’s farms now face eradication of all cows, the van Leeuwens harbour much disappointment over how the response was managed.
“It has been horrendous on us, our staff and our contract and sharemilkers.
“The impact has been devastating on all our people and for many it will mean the end forever – their businesses and their reputations have been destroyed.”
The near 90 staff had just had enough and being associated with a group farm had tainted them for the future, van Leeuwen said.
“And it shouldn’t be. There’s no need for it. There is a dirty stigma attached to it all now. People talk like it’s a plague. It’s nothing like that at all.”
He laid blame on an overdose of misinformation and people not knowing what they were doing.
He was critical of MPI’s response time.
“It took them five days to find out where our farms were and 10 days to put their feet on the first infected farm.
“We had the cows well sorted and separated by then – thank God this was not foot and mouth,” he said.
“We were very disappointed with comments from the media that targeted the robots (indoor system). We asked MPI, through the media, to clear this up and they never did. Their statements made it worse at the last public meeting.
“To get it right the initial outbreak was over just three farms, two outdoor grass and one what we call in-out, in over autumn and winter for shelter,” van Leeuwen said.
The outbreak on the first infected property was the in-out property but the cows were outside calving at the time.
It linked to two further farms, both outdoors.
But, ironically, as MPI put key emphasis on doing 39,000 blood tests, the blood testing and its lengthy process had been deemed unreliable, van Leeuwen said.
“MPI indicated that to us. They have admitted what we know too from our research of other countries that bulk milk testing is the best testing.
“That has caused a massive issue for us as we have a lot of young stock obviously not milking so blood tested and it’s unreliable.”
The van Leeuwens had asked MPI why more bulk milk testing was not being done, not just on their herds but also regionally and nationwide.
“We haven’t had an answer but we believe there seems to be no logic in what they are doing with blood testing.
“We got stuck in straight away and talked to the Aussies. They told us the best way was to bulk milk test at least two samples within one week from the same herd three days apart to catch the shedders. We are way past that now and believe this wasn’t done.
“It’s been so frustrating. We know our business, we have researched this and done everything possible to help and we have co-operated 100% but they have not listened or picked up on our input.
“We have taken the hit, for our people, our district and the NZ dairy industry.
“We were prepared to do that but now we are concerned that it will all be wasted.
“It is our belief that Mycoplasma bovis is in NZ as it got into our herd somehow and any day it could break out somewhere else and what does MPI do – believe they have it contained but we feel they may be grasping at straws to satisfy public perception.
“No one can deny the fact that it had to come to NZ from somewhere – that is the key to whether they can contain it or not.”
As the first cows went to slaughter (on November 1) in the eradication process of an initial 4000 head of stock, the van Leeuwens were working on the economic analysis of their business going forward.
That included the overall cost of having all the group farms under indefinite lock-down, lost opportunity with young stock, the cost of not being able to use their own bulls, the added cost of having to retain calves and overall loss of production taking in the quarantine period of the properties and herd rebuilding.
“Compensation – we don’t know where the hell we are at.
“They are going to kill our stock but to date there is no proper guided plan for compensation before commencement of killing our stock.
“Depending on whether this disease is found in the robots, it hasn’t been, not yet anyway, we could be looking of anything from $50 million to $100m,” van Leeuwen said.
“They tell us we will be no worse off than when this started but we have nothing on the table as yet to prove this.
“We need compensation guaranteed from day one. The first day of lockdown of the farms has been the start of lost production and income.
“We have had three months of uncertainty and alienation. It’s been too long. We can’t afford to be waiting too long for compensation and while we were able to help keep our people in the saddle through the downturn we can’t do it a second time.
“We have worked 32 years in dairy, 24 in the Waimate district where we have invested heavily in the dairy industry and its processing businesses.
“Now, because of no fault of our own we could hit the wall before Christmas,” van Leeuwen said.
“For too long we have had our hands tied behind our back. We can’t make our own decisions and forward planning – there has been no clear plan from day one and three months down the track we are no further ahead.
“It’s disappointing, it’s devastating and it just should never have got to this.
“The MPI approach needs to change if they want people to notify,” van Leeuwen said.
“On the only positive note – if we do survive this, the VLDG will be Mb-free.
“As for the rest of the country, I can’t say that with any confidence for them,” he said.
