‘Big wake-up call’

Mackle’s comment followed a public meeting in Ashburton earlier this month, one of two in the district where sampling packs were distributed to farmers as MPI’s milk-testing goes nationwide.

The meeting emphasised that MPI’s tracing teams, trying to track animal movements on and off infected farms, have not been helped by poor record-keeping under the NAIT (National Animal Identification and Tracing) scheme.

Mackle said the immediate focus is still on getting on top of the disease but at some point there will be reviews about how it got here and how it was handled, on everyone’s part. 

“Clearly” NAIT records will be among the matters reviewed, he said.

“You’ve heard a lot of comment from the experts that one of the things that has not helped the response team progress as quickly as they could have is incomplete record-keeping -- not across the board but in several situations that mattered.

“MPI is saying this slowed them down a lot, and that could have added time to this disease. So... we’ve got to do a much better job of record-keeping and staying on top of that stuff, so when something like this happens they can move quicker and get on top of it.”

The NAIT system is mandatory but lacks hard enforcement such as automatic fines for non-compliance. As DairyNZ head, Mackle will this year contribute to recommendations on how to make NAIT more usable for farmers, to increase compliance and adherence and make it more effective overall.

“Clearly questions must be asked about it, and why it’s not being used as much as it should,” said Mackle. “We all know this is going to be a big wake-up call for us.

“As tough as it is for those affected right now, the flip-side is it’s not foot-and-mouth disease, and this kind of thing gives us a chance to look at ourselves and ask ‘where do we need to lift our game?’ Clearly record-keeping in NAIT is one factor,” he said.

MPI vet Lindsay Burton also called the M. bovis event a wake-up call for NZ’s system of widespread animal movement. But questioned from the floor he declined to put a percentage figure on the degree of compliance with NAIT encountered by the tracing teams.