MPI director of readiness and response Geoff Gwyn. Photo/Mark Mitchell
MPI director of readiness and response Geoff Gwyn. Photo/Mark Mitchell
COMMENT:
Farmers are generally no-nonsense folk who don't like to be mucked around.
So it's not surprising there's been a fair amount of hissing and cussing since the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) announced just before Easter a surge in the number of restrictions placed on farms as part ofa programme to control cattle disease Mycoplasma bovis.
Farmers expressed shock at the sudden number of high risk farms – about 300 – that would be contacted by MPI as it ramped up activity.
About 250 would have notices of "direction" placed on them, meaning they can't shift stock.
Federated Farmers said the increase in activity could not have come at a worse time as for many beef and dairy farmers it happened to be the busiest time for shifting stock around.
Those affected are really struggling to deal with the situation. It's taking a psychological toll and questions are being asked as to how MPI is handling it.
The level of farmer anxiety can be summed up in a heartfelt post to Facebook by mid-Canterbury farmers Duncan and Amanda Ferguson.
"School holidays and Easter weekend along with Anzac day are normally very special family times," Amanda wrote in a post on April 1.
Her post continues, "Instead this year MPI have got us depopulating our dairy farm over this time. Good Friday saw Duncan and myself loading cows to send to Blenheim to be killed the next day. MPI can't even give me the courtesy granting me some compassion of closest works and same day kill. Anzac Day will see the last of our cows leave - 2 truck loads that day. Lives will be lost forever our beloved cows gone and all that remains will be us empty just like our farm. I can't explain how we feel as there are just no words."
Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) announced just before Easter a surge in the number of restrictions placed on farms as part of a programme to control cattle disease Mycoplasma bovis.
MPI's communication and transparency has been poor since the ambitious campaign to eradicate the disease got under way last May.
At a meeting in mid-Canterbury town Ashburton recently, local farmers were described as disheartened and concerned over the flow of information coming from MPI.
MPI's M. Bovis programme director Geoff Gwyn has said the ramp up in activity was happening because of increased surveillance last year, resulting in a peak in the number of high-risk properties being identified.
MPI needed to "get ahead of the curve" before the autumn and winter stock movements got into full swing, he said.
Outspoken MPI critic Craig Wiggins told The Country the update just before Easter was difficult to explain.
"You can't tell me that 300 farms turned up as high risk three days before Easter," he said.
Wiggins questioned why the notifications weren't progressively introduced, 50 at a time for example.
"Why wait until the last minute and two days before Easter ... a lot of the NODs have come from traceable animal movements, not actually through testing."
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To be fair to MPI, the programme leaders have to be extra vigilant at this time of the year and they have been playing catch-up with stock movements after the industry was exposed due to farmers not complying with the animal tracing system Nait.
As Gwyn told the Herald, officials have been working at pace to try and stop the disease from spreading. The update signalled there was a surge of activity coming, but it didn't change any individual farmer's circumstances, he added.
However, the feeling now is that MPI is battling to get ahead of the curve.
"We seem to be shutting the gate after the horse bolts yet again," West Coast farmer Andy Thompson says.
Without doubt the M. Bovis eradication programme is difficult. No other country has ever done it before.
But since we are going down this path, it would be nice if MPI lifted their communication with individual farmers instead of dumping on them at such a difficult time.
Of course, the taxpayer is paying for this programme - arguably no other industry gets the same kind of support.
It will likely take years to deal with.
But it's coming to the point now where more and more farmers are questioning whether is should be eradicated, or whether they should just learn to live with it.
