Request to farmers

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32563, 24 March 1971, Page 1

Request to farmers

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, March 23. Cattle producers have been asked to consider paying half the cost of a programme to eradicate brucellosis from the national herd of more than eight million head.

The Minister of Agriculture (Mr Carter) said today that he had written to the Meat Board suggesting that it consider meeting half the expense of the scheme —to cost about s4Bm over a seven-year period. Last week a deputation met the Prime Minister (Sir Keith Holyoake) and the Minister of Finance (Mr Muldoon) to ask the Government to pay all the cost of a compulsory brucellosis testing scheme. After the meeting the chairman of the Meat Board (Sir John Ormond) said the proposed scheme had become necessary because many large meat traders had accepted the United Nations recommendation that the disease be controlled, and that international meat trade be restricted to brucellosis-free producing areas.

The s4Bm scheme, supported by cattle fanners and the Agriculture Department, would require the blood-test-ing of individual cattle and the compulsory slaughter of infected animals.