DairyNZ and Beef + Lamb NZ wrap up M. bovis compensation support after $161M in claims
Compensation assistance for farmers impacted by Mycoplama bovis is being wound up.
Concerns have been raised that Mycoplasma bovis may have been in New Zealand at least five or six years before the currently accepted date of discovery.
That’s the belief of Oamaru veterinarian and Angus beef breeder Neil Sanderson.
“I’ve got people who are pretty convinced they’ve had similar outbreaks, or similar incidences of untreatable mastitis with high mortality, quite a long time before 2015,” he told Rural News.
“But MPI is very reluctant to entertain any of that, unfortunately, which I think is quite disappointing.
“Because if it was found to be in the country much before the MPI contention of a 2015 incursion, then this eradication programme would likely be a waste of time.”
Sanderson believes legitimately imported germplasm – imported embryos or semen – could be a likely entry mechanism and is sceptical about the veterinary medicine pathway.
“Back in 2007-18, an EU audit of the NZ germplasm industry played merry hell with NZ’s germplasm trade into Europe, stopping it for several years,” Sanderson claims.
However, he believes the EU’s concern at the time was more about trade than biosecurity. He says he and others had warned MPI and the then Minister of Agriculture, David Carter, that the greater risk was to NZ importing European germplasm rather than the other way around.
“I know that for importing semen and embryos [from the EU] the donor animals did not have to be tested for Mycoplasma bovis,” Sanderson says.
“There are processes for handling the embryos that were thought to remove any risk of M.bovis, but I think when you read the research that’s been done, you can’t absolutely rule it out.”
The disease appeared in NZ mainly in Holsteins. Sanderson says he had not heard of any Jersey herd or any beef herd infected, which also points to a germplasm source.
He warns that in the upcoming mating season beef and dairy farmers must be vigilant about sourcing service bulls from traceable sources and avoid buying bulls from saleyards and non-verifiable trading enterprises.
BNZ says it is backing aspiring dairy farmers through an innovative new initiative that helps make the first step to farm ownership or sharemilking a little easier.
LIC chief executive David Chin says meeting the revised methane reduction targets will rely on practical science, smart technology, and genuine collaboration across the sector.
Lincoln University Dairy Farm will be tweaking some management practices after an animal welfare complaint laid in mid-August, despite the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) investigation into the complaint finding no cause for action.
A large slice of the $3.2 billion proposed capital return for Fonterra farmer shareholders could end up with the banks.
Opening a new $3 million methane research barn in Waikato this month, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay called on the dairy sector to “go as fast as you can and prove the concepts”.
New Zealand’s trade with the European Union has jumped $2 billion since a free trade deal entered into force in May last year.

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