A robust biosecurity system was paramount to ensuring farmers could continue to protect and manage any unwanted incursions, Federated Farmers biosecurity spokesman Guy Wigley said.
“We are very pleased to see an additional focus going into biosecurity as all parties talked it up in the election campaign.
“Hopefully, getting biosecurity out of the Primary Industries Ministry will be a good way of ring-fencing the funding that goes to it,” Wigley said.
Though he did caution on how that might affect the ability to use wider industry resources to manage readiness and response.
“We will still need to have the ability to draw on the wider capability network,” he said.
A key component of biosecurity was the valuable strategy that protected people from being afraid to put their hand up.
“If we lose this, for instance the ability to compensate affected farmers, people will go to ground and hide and disease will spread far and wide and we won’t have the success we are seeing in recent responses such as Mycoplasma bovis, black grass and pea weevil.”
The arable industry was well placed to help feed livestock and people in NZ with huge capacity to expand so NZ was less reliant on imported seeds and their associated biosecurity risks.
As a trading nation NZ needed to have rules that were soundly based on science with ongoing reviews of import health standards to make sure they remained fit for purpose.
“It is crucial that farmers have confidence in biosecurity policy and processes and we looked forward to engaging with new Minister Damien O’Connor and enhanced biosecurity in the future.”
Horticulture NZ chief executive Mike Chapman said a biosecurity incursion could and had brought parts of the primary sector to a complete standstill with primary industries managing a number of incursions including mycoplasma bovis, myrtle rust, pea weevil and oyster parasite.
Controlling and eradicating the incursions cost farmers, growers, industry and the Government millions of dollars.
“On behalf of all farmers and growers our plea is for biosecurity to remain a top priority for the new Government to embrace and enhance the current Biosecurity 2025 programme and for all of us to work together to keep those unwanted pests and diseases out of NZ,” Chapman said.
