Listen: Mycoplasma bovis cull emotional for farmer

File photo supplied by DairyNZ

Mid Canterbury dairy farmer Frank Peters is facing the prospect of losing 55 years of breeding genetics as he awaits the cull of his Mycoplasma bovis infected dairy herd, despite being clean in bulk milk testing.

An emotional Peters broke down when he spoke to The Country's Jamie Mackay saying the cull is going to be "bloody hard."

"You see your granddaughter sitting in [with] the calves...loving every minute of it and knowing that the things are going to be slaughtered next week it's not a very easy thing to sit there and take."

Mycoplasma bovis ended up on Peters' Ashburton farm from stock purchased four years ago from a Zeestraten property now known to be ground zero for the cattle disease.

Peters is struggling to find replacements for the culled cows that are of the same calibre as his stock.

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"Over the next...12 months or so, I'll be pulling my hair out...I don't know what to do."

Peters has sold over 2500 calves in the past four years and his NAIT records are up to date. Now he says it's up to MPI to trace them all.

MPI's bulk milk testing did not show any signs of M. bovis in Peters' cows and he is critical of the accuracy of the test.

"It's just plain and simple not [accurate], I know most farmers have got a little piece of paper from their dairy company to say...they were clean. Well - I've got one of those too."

"Why give farmers confidence [that] this test is clear?"

Despite the loss of stock, Peters says other farmers are worse off than him. He feels he is "lucky enough to hopefully keep one herd," and has enough equity to be able to buy more cows without waiting for compensation.

"It's enough stress as it is...for farmers to sit here at wait and not know who's going to pay them."

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