Fish-based fertiliser maker decries board warning

The manufacturer of a high-profile fertiliser, Nitrosol, says the head of New Zealand's meat industry board, Neil Taylor, has wrongly included its fish-based liquid blood and bone in a dire warning against other blood and bone fertilisers.

Rural Research Ltd managing director Rod Klarwill said he was tired of authorities warning farmers against use of blood and bone meal made from ground-up sheep and cattle without explaining that his popular fish-based blood and bone liquid was perfectly safe.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) made similar statements in June last year - which Mr Klarwill blamed for cancelled orders for 4000 litres of the fish liquid.

Mr Taylor, the chief executive of Meat New Zealand, last night warned farmers against using blood and bone fertiliser on any pasture sheep, deer or cattle might ever again graze.

Mr Taylor said that since 2000 New Zealand had had regulations against feeding ruminant protein to other sheep and cattle, because that would be one way bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) could spread if it were to ever get into the nation's cattle or sheep.

"New Zealand does not have BSE and has never had it," he said.

"We cannot afford to damage consumer perceptions that our meat may not be safe by using fertilisers such as blood and bone."

But Mr Taylor did not explain why agricultural authorities had banned the use of ruminant blood and bone in stock feed, but had placed no legal barrier against its use as a fertiliser on the pastures where those animals grazed.

Some animal health officials fear the use of ground up sheep and cattle to fertilise pastures grazed by other sheep and cattle could leave open an avenue for spreading the disease if it were to occur in New Zealand livestock.

While it was possible, at a simplistic level, to use it as fertiliser as long as cattle, sheep or deer did not go onto the pasture until it was gone, nobody knew how long that would take.

Scientists have no objective way to say that it would be safe, for instance, if cattle were kept off the pasture for 10 days, or until 20mm of rain had fallen. The malformed prions suspected of triggering BSE are thought to remain infective for years.

Now, as part of the nation's precautions against mad cow disease spreading, if it were ever introduced to New Zealand, agricultural authorities are requiring farmers to sign a statutory declaration that no cattle, sheep or deer has been fed on any ruminant protein - including any traces of residual blood and bone meal remaining on pasture.

Mr Klarwill said Rural Research had taken "quite a knock" from the MAF call for farmers to avoid all blood and bone fertiliser and it was disappointed to find the blunder repeated by the nation's meat board.

"Now, we'll have to do something about it all over again," he said. "We've gone to great lengths to tell farmers we have a safe and effective blood and bone product made from fish.

"Now, Meat New Zealand has muddied the waters again."

The company would ask the meat industry to refine its campaign against use of blood and bone fertilisers to make it clear fish products carried no risk.

- NZPA