Friday, Apr 12, 2019
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THE INDEPENDENT VOICE OF MID CANTERBURY
Let the games begin Some farmers are still struggling with the compensation process as a result of mycoplasma bovis.
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Bovis response hurts farmers By Tim Cronshaw
Tim.c@theguardian.co.nz
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Methven dairy farmer Matt Walker is still working through compensation claims for losses nearly 16 months after mycoplasma bovis entered his herds. He learned of the disease in March last year and his family has gone through the culling of four herds, but was still “working through bovis’’ and waiting for some compensation to come through. Milk loss claims had yet to be filed. Farmers were not dealing with the same compensation delays for feed and other claims they were last year with the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI), but the response process was still lengthy, he said. “I think to be fair to them things have
improved and we haven’t been in testing for quite some time and are past that stage. We have moved past four depopulations of cows, calves and beef animals so we are fully depopulated now and are working to try and get some sort of normality. “It’s been 16 months or so and we still have some time to go.’’ During a visit to Ashburton last November new MPI director-general Ray Smith made it a priority to improve the disease response. Walker estimates his final compensation will be in the order of $6 to $8 million, but that is overshadowed by a larger loss. “They are large numbers, but they aren’t the main loss. You lose the love
of farming and the emotion and stress it puts on you makes you think, gee, do you want to carry on farming? You just have to box on because there’s not much else you can do but work through it.’’ Last October he got to the stage where he was feeding 900 cows completely on a silage diet as they had run out of fodderbeet and large feed bills were mounting, with bills to be paid since settled. Thousands of cows, calves and beef cattle were sent to the meat processors. Yet to be finalised are some animal compensation and loss of milk production compensation.
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