OPINION - Guest view: Why it is too risky to have calves at school Ag Days

Calf and lamb days are iconic country school events. Photo / File

Calf and lamb days are iconic country school events and will be a highlight on the school calendar again this spring.

For some of our rural school children, it is one of the highlights of the year to showcase an animal that they have raised from birth, groomed and taught to lead.

I myself participated in these events during my primary school years and the tradition followed with my daughters. They had more success than I ever did with their calves, which had names like Billabong, Huffer, Roxy and RPM. (The theory was you wore a T-shirt with your calf's name on it!)

But the discovery of the cattle disease Mycoplasma bovis in some parts of rural New Zealand is turning the cattle industry on its head in some regions. We haven't got it in the Bay of Plenty and let's keep it that way.

After much consideration, Bay of Plenty Federated Farmers has requested schools in the region exclude all breeds of calves from their 2018 Ag Day programmes. But please don't let this tradition collapse - continue with your lambs and goats and other pets, then hopefully the calves can return in the foreseeable future.

The reasoning behind this is to protect our dairy and beef industries from any possibility of spreading or contacting M. bovis, as one of the main avenues of possible spread is animal-to-animal contact. Therefore, it would be almost impossible to stop this happening at a school Ag Day.

Even with good biosecurity practices, it would be extremely difficult to avoid contact between calves, and imagine the stress on those organising and implementing the biosecurity practices.

Rural schools are the hub of rural communities and these events bring us together to celebrate the benefits of being rural. Therefore, this decision wasn't made lightly, but the risk of possible spread of M. bovis and the effect it could have on a rural community is too great. We have seen and read in the media how tough this is on those who have got the disease in their cattle.

If the outbreak of PSA taught us anything here in the Bay of Plenty, it was that good biosecurity practices and implementing a plan to find a path through the hard times was the best course of action.

DairyNZ, Beef and Lamb NZ, and MPI all have useful information on their websites about
M. bovis.

We are pleased the Government has taken the stance it has in trying to eradicate M. bovis. For it to be successful, we all need to adhere to the protocols and rules so it can be eradicated and calves can return to our Ag Days.

- Darryl Jensen, President Bay of Plenty Federated Farmers