Friday, March 29, 2024

Incursions rile growers

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Grain grower Garry Bryson is questioning the effectiveness of New Zealand’s biosecurity standards after losing a $2.5 million seed export contract because of the incursion of the velvet leaf weed.
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And Farmers Weekly has discovered an invasion of eucalyptus leaf beetle in Hawke’s Bay that has been kept secret for several months.

Bryson, who owns the feed business Golden Grain, said he was fed up with the Ministry for Primary Industries’ inability to contain weed seed and for having an import standard that even allowed shipments containing highly invasive weeds into the country in the first place.

Growers were doubly hit by an incursion that not only made growing crops more difficult and expensive but also meant the loss of export markets, such as his maize seed contract to New Caledonia.

In recent months four new unwanted weeds and bugs have become established prompting Federated Farmers maize and forage deputy chairman Hew Dalrymple to call on MPI to do a better job defending our border.

“They (MPI) seem to react to incursions when defending the border is what we are concerned about.”

Last year a shipment of imported maize was found to be infested with the weed Noogoora burr seed and this year imported fodder beet seed was found to be contaminated with velvet leaf seed.

The eucalyptus leaf beetle has in recent months become established in Hawke’s Bay while in 2013 black grass seed was accidentally spread in mid Canterbury.

Dalrymple said MPI needed to do more physically checking and sampling of imported products and take a tougher line with any breaches, rejecting and fining the importers of those not up to standard.

“Until they start sending strong messages, importers will take the lazy path.”

He questioned MPI’s response to claims Waikato’s velvet leaf incursion was linked to imported chicken feed, saying imports should be stopped until it was confirmed or ruled out.

MPI maintains imported chicken feed was not the source of the latest incursion in Waikato.

However, the source of earlier outbreaks in the region has still not been determined.

In a response to a series of written questions from Farmers Weekly, the ministry’s investigation, diagnostic centres and response director Veronica Herrera said MPI had confidence strict controls in place for imported grain effectively managed the biosecurity risk.

“All grain imported under MPI approved grain import systems is processed before being used as feed and food products, such as being fed to chickens. 

“This processing ensures all seeds including weed seeds are crushed and heat treated to render them non-viable.”

Waikato Regional Council traced the velvet leaf in maize and linked the latest outbreak to maize silage movements, stock and machinery.

Bryson had support in Parliament this week from NZ First agricultural spokesman Richard Prosser. 

Like Bryson, Prosser called on MPI to revoke the import standard that allowed grain seed with weed seed in it to be imported in the first place.

“This risk-based approach where they look at the ultimate end use and assess the risk from there is not working,” Prosser said.

Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy said in a statement that biosecurity was his number one priority and that he did not blame MPI officials for the velvet leaf incursion.

“Seed producers should ensure their products are free from contaminants.

“A good analogy is if a NZ company exported an unsafe food product we wouldn’t blame the other country for that happening. The moral responsibility would lie with the manufacturer.”

Guy said $27 million in extra funding last year allowed the employment of 90 new frontline biosecurity staff and 24 new detector dog teams and improved import health standards for greater auditing of exporting countries.

Read more on NZ's recent biosecurity scandals:

 

 

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