He feared animal welfare issues, including overstocking, would develop on some properties as a consequence, because the cattle could not be moved off-farm, farmers were unable to buy feed in because they did not have the money or because there was none available and potential for demand to outstrip supply.
"That may not be MPI's aim but it will happen because MPI have no more policies and procedures on how to handle this now than they did last July,'' he said.
He understood more than 1000 animals killed under Animal Welfare Act orders on farms in Southland from January to March, and taken to a landfill at Browns, came from calf rearing properties that could not send animals away, as they were under controls, and became overstocked.
The animals became stressed and developed symptoms of Mycoplasma bovis and those sick animals were then killed.
That could have been avoided by killing the whole lot when first placing the restricted place notice on the properties, ``rather than progressively killing as they fell over'', he said.
"The Animal Welfare Act states that all efforts should be made to avoid disease development, as much as killing them when untreatable,'' Mr Dwyer said.
MPI did not respond yesterday to an inquiry from the Otago Daily Times seeking a response to Mr Dwyer's concerns.
Animal health expert Associate Prof Richard Laven, from the School of Veterinary Science, at Massey University, said the main effects of M.bovis were pneumonia in calves, and occasionally in adult cattle, and mastitis and arthritis in adult cattle.
In New Zealand, pneumonia was rare in calves, so it was unlikely M.bovis would cause significant problems, he said.
In contrast, it had caused large outbreaks of mastitis and arthritis.
On the first farm diagnosed with the disease, more than 300 cows were diagnosed with mastitis and more than 35 with arthritis.
Both conditions were painful, particularly the arthritis, and untreatable.
In conjunction with the disease in the adults, more than 100 calves were affected by M. bovis infection before birth and were euthanised.
M. bovis could ``clearly cause significant welfare problems'' on New Zealand farms, he said.
However, most of the farms that had been identified as infected had no obvious disease; they had been identified using testing of milk, blood or tonsils. On those farms, Mycoplasma had no welfare impact.
Further research was required to better establish the impact of the disease on New Zealand farms.
MPI recently funded a project at Massey University with a master's student to investigate that topic, he said.
Political sniping has continued, as Agriculture Minister Damien O'Connor and National's agriculture spokesman Nathan Guy - who was primary industries minister when the disease was first detected on a South Canterbury property last July - continue to blame each other's governments.
Mr O'Connor blamed the previous government's inaction, lack of enforcement and lack of promotion of the National Animal Identification and Tracing (Nait).
Mr Guy said the Government needed to stop blaming farmers for the ongoing spread.
Mr O'Connor was ``labelling farmers as greedy and blaming them for spreading it''.
"Now he's taking aim at stock agents and blaming them - next it will be truckies - despite MPI officials telling the select committee that compliance with the Nait system had been very good on recent Cook Strait ferry checks,'' he said.
Compensation payments had been occurring at a ``snail's pace'', Mr Guy said.
Mr Dwyer and his wife Rosie had not received compensation, 17 weeks after lodging their claim.
A letter from MPI confirmed the funds they requested had been recommended for payment, but needed to be reviewed first.
sally.rae@odt.co.nz
