5 Jul 2019

Apology to farmers over Mycoplasma Bovis eradication programme

From Morning Report, 7:45 am on 5 July 2019

The Director-General of the Ministry for Primary Industries has apologised to farmers for the way the ministry handled the programme to eradicate Mycoplasma Bovis.

Two reviews of how MPI handled the tracking of the debilitating and contagious cattle disease were published on Thursday.

Both were critical - and the scientists involved have made 43 recommendations to improve things.

Mycoplasma bovis can cause lameness, mastitis and abortions in cows and was first detected in New Zealand in 2017.

As of last week, almost 106,000 cattle have been killed.

Ray Smith is the Director General of MPI. He talks to Corin Dann.