ANIMAL PUBLIC HEALTH.

Taranaki Daily News, 15 July 1935, Page 4

ANIMAL PUBLIC HEALTH.

A matter of animal public health which C amA before the North Taranaki executive of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union at its meeting last week raised considerations of some importance. The presence of the serious stock disease known as “Johne’s Disease” in Taranaki has been known to the authorities for some time, and there is no need for any panic in regard to its incidence or spread. But there does seem occasion for a general awakening of interest in North Taranaki in regard to animal public health. Abortion, sterility, mammitis, blackleg and tuberculosis are all taking their toll of the usefulness of the dairy herds, and there seems no concerted effort to overcome these evils. It is obvious that they cannot be overcome in a few weeks or months, but it is equally obvious that until, preliminary work begins there can never be a well sustained effort to minimise or eliminate these evils. Is there any reason, for instance; why a definite test cannot be made of all dairy herds for tuberculosis? The scientist can determine with almost absolute accuracy the percentage of stock that must be destroyed in order to clean the herds. The question of doing so then becomes an economic one, and here the Executive Commission of Agriculture might prove of assistance. It is important to bring dairy sheds and farm buildings up to a standard that will enable the production of first-class milk or cream. It is even more important that healthy cows should occupy those sheds, and if financial assistance could be made available the problem of getting rid of disease would be simplified a good deal. There seems too much apathy on the part of stockowners. Veterinary . supervision, either official or private, has been considerably weakened in North Taranaki. The New Plymouth laboratory has ceased to function, and research work has fallen in proportion to the interest in it manifested by the stockowners. It is a matter which farmers’ organisations and dairy companies might regard with the seriousness it merits, for there is nothing like apathy to give disease a chance to progress and multiply.