Bikinis in cowshed
OPINION: An animal activist organisation is calling for an investigation into the use of dairy cows in sexuallly explicit content posted on social media and adult entertainment subscription site OnlyFans.
37 farms have been confirmed as infected with Mycoplasma bovis by the Ministry for Primary Industries — eight in the North Island and 29 in the South.
Twenty-one are beef farms, 14 dairy and two are “others.” Including those infected farms, 58 are now listed as ‘restricted places’.
Notices of direction (NOD), which restrict some movement of stock from farms and are usually applied to farms where test results are pending, are in place on 190 properties.
A Biosecurity NZ map of the M. bovis spread indicates that only the Bay of Plenty and Marlborough remain free of the disease, with neither RP notices nor NODs in force.
Taranaki and the South Island West Coast have farms under NODs but as yet no confirmed infection. MPI says 70 - 80% of NODs do not go on to prove infected.
Meanwhile, MPI says eradication continues, with 30 farms now cleaned and depopulated and free to resume operation with new stock.
Simple steps
MPI is calling on farmers to adopt robust biosecurity practices. Simple steps farmers can take include:
- carefully consider the disease status of new stock before animals are bought or moved
- ensure visitors clean and disinfect their equipment, clothing and footwear on arrival at a farm
- make boundary fences secure and prevent nose-to-nose contact with neighbouring stock
- give young calves special protection, allowing only essential people into the calf shed.
NZPork has appointed Auckland-based Paul Bucknell as its new chair.
The Government claims to have delivered on its election promise to protect productive farmland from emissions trading scheme (ETS) but red meat farmers aren’t happy.
Foot and Mouth Disease outbreaks could have a detrimental impact on any country's rural sector, as seen in the United Kingdom's 2000 outbreak that saw the compulsory slaughter of over six million animals.
The Ministry for the Environment is joining as a national award sponsor in the Ballance Farm Environment Awards (BFEA from next year).
Kiwis are wasting less of their food than they were two years ago, and this has been enough to push New Zealand’s total household food waste bill lower, the 2025 Rabobank KiwiHarvest Food Waste survey has found.
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