ECZEMA IN SHEEP

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28482, 11 January 1958, Page 10

ECZEMA IN SHEEP

Control Review Committee

(New Zeaiana Press Association) WELLINGTON, Jan. 10'.

The Government yvill set up a facial eczema advisory committee to keep research and control measures against the complaint under review.

The Minister of Agriculture (Mr C. F. Skinner) said today that the members of the committee would be two farmers, two departmental officers and two independent I scientists.

Besides constantly keeping control measures under review, the) | committee would make recommendations to ensure an effective research programme and would keep farmers informed of the results of investigations.

Mr Skinner also announced a number of other measures the Government plans to eradicate facial eczema.

“The Government is just as anxious as farmers that the maximum effort should be made to reduce or, if possible, remove the undeniably serious threat that facial feczema represents,” he said.

The Government had invited an eminent overseas chemist, Dr. R. L. M. Synge, to visit New Zealand for 12 months to assist with investigations and fellowships would be offered to three chemists and one experimental pathologist. Good Progress

Good progress had already been made by Department of Agriculture research officers in their search for the liver-damaging factor associated with facial eczema, said Mr Skinner. Extracts had been prepared which contained only one hundred-thousandth of the original dried matter in the pasture and were still capable of producing liver damage. A chemical test (known as the beaker test) had been devised which detected the liver-damaging factox in pasture with about 80 per cent, accuracy, he said. It could be performed on a few ounces of dried grass and completed in less than 12 hours. Pasture would again be collected from a number of areas in the Waikato and Poverty Bay districts during the coming autumn, said the Minister. Beaker tests would be used to select areas from which to cut and dry pasture, and this should result in a greater proportion of the dried pasture containing the toxic substance. The plant chemistry laboratory, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, was assisting in the extraction work and it was hoped would be able to do the preliminary extraction on a larger scale than had been possible previously. A number of fungicides would be sprayed on to experimental areas to determine if toxicity in pasture could be prevented in this way, said Mr Skinner. Committees consisting of officers of the Department of Agriculture and farmers’ representatives had been set up in districts where facial eczema occurred to issue warnings when the weather made outbreaks of the disease likely and to advise farmers what measures should, be taken to protect their stock, the Minister said.