The cattle disease found in July last year has affected hundreds of dairy and beef farmers over the past 13 months.
A delegation of infected property farmers was invited to meet the officials in Wellington last week.
Ashburton farmer Frank Peters, who lost 55 years of dairy breeding genetics when his herd went to slaughter in May, said he came away from the meeting with some confidence it was a fruitful exercise.
He was one of a dozen graziers, calf rearers, bull beef breeders, sheep and beef and dairy farmers invited to the pow-wow.
“I did come out of the meeting feeling a lot more confident than when I went in.
“They are trying their best. They admitted they made mistakes but they now appear willing to listen to farmers to help them,” Peters said.
“Certainly there’s been a lot of cock-ups.
“MPI admit they didn’t have the resources they needed but in reality anybody wouldn’t have. Lesson learned.”
Farmers openly aired their views at the meeting.
“Really, the whole lot of everything came back to the big C – communication.
“How can it be improved to give famers some choice.
“MPI needs to tell us what we can’t do and leave it to farmers to work a plan around what they can do.
“There will be inconvenience every way but at least farmers can be part of the best outcome for all with the least disruption when they are in control of their own situation,” Peters said.
MPI said it can learn a lot from farmers and now appears willing to learn.
Farmers like himself are keen to help other IP farmers and Peters said farmers urged MPI to up its game in the middle management area.
“This an area where more training is needed and more farmer input will be very helpful. It’s about farmers helping farmers.
“Nobody can tell you what you will experience if you haven’t been through it.
“In reality it’s about experience and speaking from experience I know it’s not a good experience but as IP farmers we can help these people.”
Compensation was a hot topic.
“There’s still a lot of haze around compensation and MPI admitted it needs to and can do better.”
It was clear straightforward claims make it through the system but claims with grey areas are in the too-hard basket for far too long.
He described the meeting as constructive and a good, positive step forward.
“Farmers set targets for MPI and these meetings are to continue so we will all sit down again in four to six weeks and measure the progress.”
MPI national incident controller Catherine Duthie said the meeting was valuable for MPI staff.
“We are really trying to interact on a personal level and invite feedback on what we can be doing better.
“It was beneficial for us to hear the individual experiences first-hand from the farmers and to see how we can make improvements.
“It was also an opportunity to find out what is working, such as moving to a farmer-centric approach and having dedicated ICP’s for each farm,” Duthie said.
As expected, lack of communication and the ease and speed of the compensation claim process were key issues.
“We have made assurances we will improve both of these points.
“We won’t always get it right but we will make every effort to rectify known issues.
“As we continue on this response I hope we keep improving and working closely with affected farmers and the farming sector.
“We want farmers who are under surveillance or movement restrictions to have certainty around what they can expect next in the process and make sure they understand what support is available to them as they go through this challenging time,” Duthie said.
Meantime, it’s business “almost as usual” on Peters’ Ashburton dairy farm.
“It’s been a long hard road with plenty of bumps and emotion along the way but everyone has worked bloody hard and we are very happy to be calving and back milking again.
“There’s still some itches and scratches but we are working through them.”
There are now 38 infected properties – 18 beef, 17 dairy and three lifestyle.
A total of 173 properties that were previously under MPI management have had controls lifted.
MPI is confident it’s on the right track as the plan for phased eradication continues.
