Thursday, March 28, 2024

Upset farmers still in dark

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Farmers desperately seeking answers feel they have been left in limbo as the cattle disease Mycoplasma bovis takes hold and still the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) says it has no clear idea how it got here.
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The ministry has confirmed the outbreak could cost $100 million in tracking and tracing the spread of the disease and paying compensation to farmers. It initially budgeted for $35m.

With too many gaps and too few answers farmers are understandably anxious about whether the Government is going to eradicate it, Federated Farmers dairy chairman Chris Lewis said.

M bovis was top of mind at the two-day Federated Farmers dairy council meeting in Christchurch at which MPI principal policy and regulation adviser Colin O’Connor met tough questioning from the floor in a closed session.

“But he was very guarded on certain answers – many questions were above his pay level to answer,” Lewis said.

“Farmers want to know where it came from and how it got to NZ.

“As an industry if we are going to spend money on biosecurity, and it looks like we will be, then we want assurance it will not come to NZ ever again if we are going down the path of full eradication.”

Lewis said with confirmation the M bovis strain here was not the same as in Australia it had to have come from the northern hemisphere.

The frozen semen pathway had definitely not been ruled out.

“It looks like it is very much still alive and with autumn upon us farmers are making a plan for next season and we need certainty around this.”

Lewis said while there were people in the industry claiming there was no chance of semen being a pathway, international experts had a differing opinion.

“We are being told here that is wrong but nobody can tell us why that is wrong and we know that is for commerical reasons, not in the best interest of the farmer and the industry.

“It is unlikely you are going to catch it from a neighbour. You are more likely going to bring it onto farm.”

Lewis said people were really engaged now but going nowhere because of too much uncertainty, including over compensation.

“The clock is ticking and still we are left with more questions than answers. 

“Farmers are in the dark. There are just so many gaps and too few answers.”

MPI admitted it still has no clear idea about how M bovis got here but it does not believe greater resources would have prevented its arrival.

Speaking at the Primary Production select committee last Thursday MPI director-general Martyn Dunne said MPI is still unable to give a clear picture on its source.

“As to whether more resources would have stopped it, that is not my view.

“The history of such incursions is that they have either come by nature, someone has unwittingly brought something in or someone has deliberately done it. 

“I’d like to think the last one was not the case. 

“It is possible unwitting things occurred. We’ll be in a position, I hope, to give more clarity around that.”

The van Leeuwen Group in South Canterbury was the first farming enterprise to identify the disease, in July last year, and was initially said to be the source.

But with tracing now going back to January 2016 in Southland, MPI said “it may now transpire that Southland was in fact the first area infected”. 

MPI has 26 properties with confirmed M bovis infection.

Response director Geoff Gwynn said the 26 were among 43 under restriction with another 55 under notice of direction and on top of that more than 670 were under some form of surveillance. 

MPI has received 51 compensation claims, of which it had paid out on 10, partly or in full, with compensation payments totalling about $2.6m.

Gwyn said MPI had budgeted on the operating costs of dealing with M bovis at $35m but it now looked likely it had compensation liabilities of about $65m. 

Meanwhile, the industry’s contribution to the response was yet to be determined.

Dunne said the ministry remains optimistic it can eradicate the disease with a final decision to be made this month.

He could not say how much money the industry has committed to the response costs but MPI is in negotiations about its contribution.

MPI will seek more money from the Government.

“We are okay with the funding we have got so far but the Government is well aware of the ongoing costs in dealing with this and I remain confident that MPI will be in a position to cover the response and compensation that have so far been identified,” Dunne said.

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