The discovery of Mycoplasma bovis on two South Canterbury farms understandably has the farming community on tenterhooks.
The bacterial disease may be prevalent among cattle globally but it has never previously been detected in New Zealand.
Fortunately, it presents no food safety risk and there are no concerns about consuming milk and milk products.
But the disease has serious effects including mastitis, abortion, pneumonia and arthritis and therefore the ramifications for farmers — both financially and from an animal welfare perspective — are huge.
About 140 farmers and rural professionals attended a meeting at Papakaio earlier this week, many of whom were looking for answers.
Yet they left unsatisfied with the Ministry for Primary Industries unable to give an indication on when test results from other properties would be available.
The first results started trickling in yesterday.
Van Leeuwen Dairy Group — the owner of the two affected properties — has restriction notices placed on all 16 of its farms, which basically means they are in quarantine.
Yet more than 60 farms are being tested, including neighbouring properties and also properties which have been traced as having contact with Van Leeuwen stock.
Van Leeuwen Dairy Group is a large-scale dairy operation so there were a number of neighbours potentially affected by the disease which spreads between cows in close contact.
As one neighbour to one of its 16 farms said, his beef cows were over the boundary fence — "kissing, doing whatever" — and he wanted to know what could be done to protect his herd. MPI says the testing programme is complex — and that may well be — but have the resources been adequate given the potential major threat to New Zealand’s primary industry sector?Until now, only one laboratory has been available to use but efforts are being made to get other laboratories involved.
There is no doubt, as Merlyn Hay, the veterinarian who first suspected the outbreak says, it has been a stressful and harrowing experience for Van Leeuwen Dairy Group.
Founded by Ad and Wilma van Leeuwen, it is a high-profile operation which includes the world’s largest robotic dairy barn. Wilma van Leeuwen was a finalist in the Dairy Woman of the Year in 2015 and, last month, Mr and Mrs van Leeuwen were on The National Business Review’s 2017 Rich List with estimated wealth of $60million.
But that is all irrelevant at this point; no farmer wants to see their animals suffer, nor have to send them to slaughter.
So while Ms Hay is right to say Van Leeuwen Dairy Group deserves empathy and respect as the crisis continues, it is also a nail-biting time for other farmers as they await the results.
Just this week, Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy reiterated biosecurity was his "number one" priority.
In June, primary industry leaders yet again ranked biosecurity as the highest priority in KPMG’s Agribusiness Agenda. It has ranked first in every survey completed.
Yet New Zealand First leader Winston Peters claims there have been well over 150 post-border incursions since 2008 and, since 2016 alone, they have included the likes of velvet leaf, pea weevil and myrtle rust — and now Mycoplasma bovis.
Many questions remain unanswered about Mycoplasma bovis — including how the disease arrived in New Zealand — but the reality is that it is here now, and the fervent hope is that it can be contained and eradicated. Whether that is the case largely depends on the lab.
