Leah Prankerd: A passion for dairying and farmer support
It was love that first led Leah Prankerd to dairying.
DairyNZ biosecurity, readiness and response manager Chris Morley says the Mycoplasma bovis outbreak has been “bloody awful” for those caught up in it.
“They are some of the best farmers we know and they’re going through hell.”
In countries where the disease is established it has a big impact, causing a nasty untreatable mastitis. Cows are culled and the disease goes quiet for a year or two then flares up again.
“It doesn’t go away; it survives in biofilms -- all those crevices in milking sheds and milking machines,” Morley explained. “It survives in the animal. And if they’re not stressed, sometimes it has no effect.”
Morley says that of the seven NZ farms with positive detections, two of the Van Leeuwen properties were having “real problems,” with serious mastitis and arthritis in calves that had drunk milk from infected cows.
But there were no clinical signs on the other positive properties, including the Rangiora lifestyle block and the calf rearer south of Oamaru.
“There was no sign of sickness. Those calves were really nice calves. There was nothing going on.”
Morley says the response team had done a lot of work assessing what it would cost dairy in the long term if not eradicated.
“Over 10 years we are talking hundreds of millions [of dollars] in impact to the industry. It’s a big number.”
It would also impact the meat industry, where there was increasing talk of the rising value of ‘fifth quarter’ products. Mycoplasma is very hard to take out of those products, he said.
However, confidence is building that eradication is possible.
“Unlike foot and mouth disease this doesn’t jump over the fence on the wind,” Morley adds. “We can contain it. I’m really optimistic that this might be one of those purity incursions that NZ can stop and will stop, unlike myrtle rust and velvetleaf and other things we struggle with.”
Meanwhile, Norton attacked the attitudes of those who believed the battle is already lost, saying the defeatists “need to be lined up in front of a firing squad”.
There has not been a single ounce of evidence of a spread.
“We will get eradication,” he said.
Relationships are key to opening new trading opportunities and dealing with some of the rules that countries impose that impede the free flow of trade.
Dawn Meats chief executive Niall Browne says their joint venture with Alliance Group will create “a dynamic industry competitor”.
Tributes have flowed following the death of former Prime Minister and political and business leader, Jim Bolger. He was 90.
A drop in methane targets announced by the Government this month has pleased farmers but there are concerns that without cross-party support, the targets would change once a Labour-led Government is voted into office.
Farmer shareholders of meat processor Alliance have voted in favour of a proposed $270 million joint venture investment by Irish company, Dawn Meats.
The former chair of the Bay of Plenty Regional Council and farmer, Doug Leeder, says rural communities' biggest fear right now is the lack of long-term certainty over environmental regulations.
OPINION: Voting is underway for Fonterra’s divestment proposal, with shareholders deciding whether or not sell its consumer brands business.
OPINION: Politicians and Wellington bureaucrats should take a leaf out of the book of Canterbury District Police Commander Superintendent Tony Hill.