Editorial: Let's tell the world our meat is clean

Before the advent of today's telecommunications someone coined the adage, "A lie is half-way around the world before the truth can get its boots on." Today, when the world is talking by satellite and fibre-optic cable, a lie can spin several times around the globe and spread like a disease through the worldwide web before its victims know they need to get their boots on.

Twice now since the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Britain, New Zealand has been wrongly reported to be infected with scrapie or foot-and-mouth. The first time, when the German farmers' Central Marketing Association claimed on its website and in pamphlets that New Zealand sheep suffered from scrapie, Meat NZ responded intelligently. It took care to see that its German counterpart quietly corrected the error. It did not shout in outrage and righteousness from German rooftops, judging quite rightly that to have done so would have merely raised a question in the minds of many more people than were aware of the untruth.

The second slight to our disease-free status came this week in shoddy reporting on the website of the global television channel CNN, which included New Zealand and Australia in a list of countries suspected of having cases of foot-and-mouth. Time magazine was just as careless, stating last week that New Zealand had "largely eliminated" foot-and-mouth. This country has never suffered a case of foot-and-mouth, although it has taken drastic measures on suspicion of a case once or twice, and it eliminated scrapie 30 years ago. Perhaps it is time we said so.

Cautious, low-key corrections of misinformation have their use, but they might not be enough if they are trying to counter an impression that comes easily to people. With one country after another reporting the spread of foot-and-mouth over the past three weeks, people will readily gain the impression that it is everywhere, with no help from reporters who do not check their own impressions. Disease-free countries may have to be more forthright about the fact.

Our export marketing strategists are understandably reluctant to advertise our good fortune in the midst of Europe's troubles. Europe's farmers enjoy a great deal of popular sympathy at the best of times. It gives them the political clout to maintain a generously subsidised lifestyle largely at the expense of urban dwellers who are grateful to them for cultivating the countryside and keeping alive the remnants of a romanticised past.

But foot-and-mouth disease is spreading so widely - Argentina has reported a case now - that consumers in Europe, Japan and other large markets may begin to assume it is everywhere. Those countries that have managed to keep themselves free of the disease may need to advertise the fact, not just for the sake of their own sales but for the preservation of the markets for red meat.

The outbreak in Britain is expected to last many months yet. There is a risk that over that length of time dietary habits could change permanently. There is a point at which New Zealand and Australia cannot afford to be sensitive and sporting about promoting the safety of their products in these circumstances.

They know to be subtle about it. You don't sell a product by associating it with disease, even in denial. But there are myriad ways of conveying the same message in a positive way. The more serious risk in advertising our virtue is that we invite sceptics to investigate it. There will be no shortage of food puritans in Europe happy to see red meat off the menu. If countries such as ours are to proclaim the purity of our products, we will have to be vigilant to maintain the truth of the claim.

We must remain vigilant anyhow. The disease is endemic in parts of Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America.

The case reported from Argentina last week is a reminder that few parts of the world are free of the scourge. For those countries still clear - the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand - quarantine precautions at airports and food import restrictions can hardly be too stringent.

By advertising our good fortune so far, we may also remind travellers that they need to help to keep us disease free.