How would feel having to kill your whole herd of cows because one of them is sick, ruining your income and your job even your life. They may not even be sick or have symptoms but still have to put them down.

Well people among us are going through that right now. The mycoplasma bovis disease is spread through cattle and to make matters worse it is easily passed on just through close contact with each other.. It has traveled the world and New Zealand is now a victim of it. The first place in New Zealand to have confirmed to have the disease was 2 farms in South Canterbury and has quickly spread to over 13 farms nationwide. The way that this disease can be such a problem is that it is immune to any antibiotics to cure the cattle of the disease. No countries have tried to eradicate it and Norway is the only country who hasn’t had it. The signs of the disease include Arthritis, late term abortion and pneumonia. The ministry of primary industries was going to make an attempt to cure cows of the disease but have come to a conclusion that they will just eradicate all the cows holding the disease and cattle that are at a high risk of it. This means that over 126,000 cattle will be killed from over 190 farms. It is estimated that the eradication will take near to one – two years. The ministry have let the farmers have a time of their choice to do eradication so it won’t disrupt their dairy or meat industry so abruptly as it could if the ministry was kill the cows under their control. None of the meat from the culled cows will be eaten although the disease doesn’t have a food safety risk. This has been the system used by every country to obtain the disease which is everywhere except Norway. This means that it was definitely expected for our country to obtain it at some stage as it has been an ongoing global crisis with every farm holding the disease having to eradicate their herd which disrupts their income, jobs and life to a point. It really puts things to a halt with the meat and dairy industry which spikes in price to make it hard for families to continue having the produce until stock is increased once again. In my opinion I find it horrible that one can just say that there is no point in trying to find a cure it’s a waste of money so their only option from their its to obviously eradicate the cattle. This is bad because it is a global crisis and if someone was to find a cure and paid millions it would have been worth it save every other farm that obtained the disease. Farmers across the globe complained throughout saying that this disease was a big disruption for every farmer obtaining the disease on their farm. One farmer said to the interviewer “I’m sick and tired of the lack of interest the government has given to us between the early signs of the disease, it could’ve been stopped a lot earlier yet the time left has made it longer and harder process for eradication which has easily pushed a lot of farmers back thousands of dollars”. In my opinion this is a very fair statement to comply with as he is too right that the government would’ve been able to save people thousands and deal with the situation earlier. 

Therefore this disease that is taking over farms across globe named mycoplasma bovis is stilll a threat for any country. In my opinion the governments need to look more into this problem for the reason that if it happens again they can be organised enought to shut the disease down before it can spread out and be a problem for multiple farmers across the country. If New Zealand excecutes their plan of eradication then the other countries could learn from it and do it themselves