Category: Rural

Source: Radio New Zealand

An Otatara man thought to be New Zealand’s longest-serving meat worker retired this month after 64 years in the industry.

Ken McLeod, 80, started in 1962 when he was only 16 at the now-closed Makarewa Meatworks in Southland.

“I was mostly a boner in all those years, and thanks to the Meat Workers Union we got very good money,” he told Morning Report on Friday.

“The money set me up for life and did everything else, and I’ve travelled a lot. I just enjoyed the good money and the hard work involved.”

https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2019014635/otatara-meat-worker-retires-after-64-years-on-the-job

He rarely took sick days, and worked his way up to boner, his favourite of the jobs. In the mid-1960s, when he was still a teenager, he was bringing home the modern equivalent of up to $4000 a week.

“I felt like I’d robbed a bank,” McLeod laughed.

“I saw a lot of people waste it. An old fellow who had worked in the works for years, he said, ‘Save half your pay and play out the rest, because he said, you’ll find it’ll be out.’ And that’s what I did.”

As the technology changed, so did the work – not to mention the conditions.

“I know this sounds horrible, but when I first started boning, I was 20 and we only changed clothes twice a week because they had to send the laundry into town or something like that.

“But then a couple of years later, they actually built a laundry and then we changed our laundry every day, which was what it has been ever since.”

An early computer brought in to handle payroll was unable to handle the wages – McLeod saying their pay packets had to be split in two because the amounts were too high for the machine to handle.

“We used to laugh, and they had to give us a pay worth gross of £100, and then another one of £20 or £30.”

McLeod eventually ended up at Blue Sky Pastures in 1988, where he has worked ever since. He also rose to become president of the Meat Workers Union.

But preparing meat was not what he originally intended to do with his life.

“I really wanted to join the Army and go to Vietnam, but… my mother wouldn’t sign the papers because you had to have your parents’ consent… I was only 20 at the time.

“But in hindsight it was the best thing because three or four years later I met my wife and I’ve been happily married for 56 years and [had] two lovely girls and they’re happily married and gave us four lovely grandchildren. So I’ve been very lucky in that respect.”

While the tough physical work has taken its toll McLeod has no plans to slow down, and intends to spend his retirement staying active with walking, fishing, deer hunting and maintaining his house.

While sheep farming is not what it once was in New Zealand, McLeod predicts a comeback.

“When I started there was 70 million sheep in New Zealand. Now there’s only about 23 or 25 [million]. There’s been massive changes, in Southland three of the big works have all closed down… they’ve all closed and there’s only the big Alliance works with four chains left…

“But there is hopefully a revival of sheep meat because the price for lamb this year is very good and wool’s actually gone up in price, so there may be a swing back to more sheep farming and hopefully there is.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Feral cats are responsible for spreading toxoplasmosis, which can cause “abortion storms” on sheep farms. Methods of control, such as annual culls, have come under fire from animal welfare advocates.

Content warning: This story describes the killing of animals, including an image of a trapped feral cat

It was over beers in a woolshed that the decision was made: Feral cats would be part of the North Canterbury Hunting Competition.

“We just sort of looked around and went, ‘Yeah, might as well’,” says organiser Matt Bailey.

“Unbeknown to us, it would go off like a powder keg within a matter of days of posting something on social media.”

What the farmers thought was a no-brainer decision to add another pest to the competition shocked cat lovers. The backlash was immediate and sponsors of the rural fundraising event came under attack on social media.

But, if anything, the outcry from animal rights advocates made the decision to include feral cats even more popular with farmers and sponsors.

“They poked the bear and it’s probably backfired for them because it’s gotten people off their asses and out there hunting,” says Bailey.

Three years on from the woolshed conversation, the cat category remains popular. This year, contestants entered 326 dead cats for the June weighing-in weekend.

Bailey suspects the real number of feral cats culled was higher. Farmers ran out of freezer space to store the bodies, he says.

“I knew guys catching 10 a week, and they weren’t keeping them.”

This year, there was no backlash from animal rights advocates, which Bailey reckons is down to increased awareness of the damage feral cats do.

It is one topic where hard-core conservationists and farmers find common ground. Feral cats decimate native wildlife and pose a disease risk to farm animals, and dolphins.

They are found on all types of farms, according to Bailey. On dairy farms feral cats are often spotted near milking sheds or hay sheds. They are also commonly seen near offal holes, or in Bailey’s case at lambing time, in paddocks eating afterbirth.

He said he had not heard anyone report an increase in rat numbers after removing cats, adding that if rats do appear, bait stations can be used.

And to critics who argue that trapping, neutering, and releasing feral cats is better than culling them, Bailey has a blunt response: “They’re killing our native birds and not shagging them.”

How feral cats can spread disease

There is no official estimate of how many feral cats there are in New Zealand. The number of 2.4 million is often cited, but some believe the true number is far higher.

Their number creates a disease risk for every farm in the country, says NZ Veterinary Association sheep and beef branch president and vet Alex Meban.

Toxoplasmosis is carried through cats and spread through their droppings. Tens of thousands of oocysts produced by the parasite can be in cat poo, which when accidentally ingested by sheep via grass, hay or water, can be infectious.

Toxoplasmosis can also be passed to humans through contaminated soil, water or unwashed vegetables, and is particularly dangerous during pregnancy or to people with compromised immune systems, but it also affects dolphins and farm animals, such as sheep.

For farmers, there are no outward signs of the disease until lambing time. That is when an “abortion storm” can occur, which is when more than five percent of ewes lose lambs.

“It can be devastating,” says Meban. Last season one farmer realised he had lost 30 percent of foetuses during scanning.

“We asked the question about wild cats, the answer was yep, there are lots of wild cats. They hadn’t really considered it to be an issue until scanning time.”

Lamb losses like this can mean the difference between breaking even or not for a year for a farmer.

There is a vaccine for the disease, and Meban says it only takes one season of heavy lambing loss to convince a farmer to vaccinate flocks. The vaccine costs between $3 and $5 and offers lifelong protection.

If lambs are worth $150 each, he says it does not take much for the vaccine to pay for itself. Vaccination should go hand-in-hand with reducing cat numbers on farms, he says.

Farmer trappers

A Federated Farmers pest survey last year, which had 700 responses, found 37 percent were actively managing feral cats, says the organisation’s meat and wool chairperson Richard Dawkins.

The survey showed 2868 cats were culled by farmers over a 12 month period.

Anecdotally, Dawkins says he has heard the number of feral cats is on the rise. He also points to the increased risk of toxoplasmosis and impacts native wildlife.

“I have one farmer report to me that on a braided riverbed, they had a cat take out 90 percent of a fledge of young birds in a colony that was on a river Island,” Dawkins says. The cat ate 60 of the chicks of a black fronted tern colony.

Farmers have told him live capture traps are the most effective, but these need to be checked daily, which is a time-consuming exercise for farmers with large blocks.

Cats need to be included in regional council pest management plans, but without extra funding of staffing, “it just becomes words on paper to be honest,” Dawkins says.

Increased public education would help, as would support for desexing domestic cats.

The problem increases around holiday periods, which could be caused by people dumping pets, Dawkins says.

“They’re a pretty loveable animal, and people may think they’re releasing them to run free and have a good life, but they may not understand those implications,” he says.

Alternatives to killing

The Animal Justice Party was one of the groups that expressed concern at the inclusion of feral cats in hunting competitions. Committee member Bridget Thompson says the party sees all animals as sentient and objects to the killing of feral cats.

The line between companion cats, strays living close to communities, and feral cats can be tricky for people to discern.

“The problem there is that if people cannot make the distinction, you get self proclaimed eco-warriors in the cities, thinking that if they go out and kill any cat community or companion, they are doing a good thing.”

Trapping and desexing is also not the preferred option, Thompson says. Instead, she would like a biological solution.

“We would like to see serious science into interrupting the fertility cycle.”

She acknowledges nothing like this exists at present.

Predator fences are also an option until science catches up.

“There’s a range of non-violent alternatives to current methods of population control.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Harking back to the days of A Dog’s Show, sheep dog trials are returning to the screen in a new broadcasting deal for next year’s New Zealand Rural Games.

After starting from scratch a decade ago, the event – which comprises the big rural sports in one tournament – is gearing up to reach an even wider audience.

Games founder Steve Hollander said the agreement with TVNZ and TVNZ+ marks a new phase for the games held annually in Palmerston North.

He said a significant factor in securing the new deal was the huge attraction of one particular sport.

“Those of us who are a little bit long in the tooth will remember the days when sheep dog trials were carried on television on A Dog’s Show and Country Calendar,” he said.

“Everyone loves it.

“I’d say the biggest crowd that watches any of our sports events watches the sheep dog trials.”

The upcoming event in March will see national titles awarded for speed shearing, timbersports and fencing.

Some of the rural sports under the radar getting their moment in the limelight include tree climbing and the Southern Hemisphere Highlander Championship.

Hollander said rural sports have been the backbone of generations and he was proud to broaden their reach.

The New Zealand Rural Games Trust has been up and running for 13 years as the main organiser of the event.

“This will be our 11th games with a couple of years off with Covid,” he said.

“It’s [The New Zealand Rural Games] one of the biggest investments in rural sports in more than a generation.”

Last year’s crowd over the three-day event in The Square in Palmerston North was 42,500.

Organisers are expecting an even bigger crowd next March with entry free for all the sports.

Also featuring on the television coverage will be the New Zealand Rural Sports Awards night, honouring legends of the rural sporting landscape.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

New Zealand milk production hit historic levels in October, with national collections rising 2.8 percent year-on-year.

It marked the biggest October since 2018 and the third-largest month for milk production in New Zealand’s history.

It came as high global supply of milk saw Fonterra lower its forecast farmgate milk price on Tuesday to a mid point of $9.50 per kilogram of milk solids for the current season, down from $10.

NZX dairy analyst Lewis Hoggard said the lower payout would discourage farmers to carry on record milk production.

“There’ll definitely be a correction over time,” he said.

“Farmers have a sort of break-even price for what’s necessary in order to justify how much feed input they need to use. So by lowering that forecast that is gonna disincentivise a little bit of production.

“But $9.50 is still pretty strong, so I still see production being relatively strong going forward.

“But as payouts come down that should bring the supplementary feed down as well.”

Strong pasture growth earlier in spring and a high milk price had farmers feeding more supplement, with palm kernal imports (PKE) up around 7 percent in October.

PKE imports for the season so far were sitting 32 percent higher than last year too.

Hoggard said this was a sign farmers had been pushing production while payout expectations remained strong.

He said despite the reduced payout, Fonterra had lifted its forecast milk collections for this season to 1.545 billion kilos of milk solids, which signalled ongoing production strength.

Meanwhile, in Europe, dairy farmers have warned of a deepening price crisis, with the European Milk Board calling for immediate voluntary production cuts to stop prices collapsing.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Not even fast food giant McDonald’s New Zealand is immune to the rising cost of food, especially for key burger ingredient beef.

However, it recouped its spend on ingredients sourced in New Zealand last year with stronger earnings from its exports of them.

Around 90 percent of the fast food chain’s menu in its 170 restaurants across Aotearoa was sourced from local farms, and it spent $235 million on local produce in 2024, up from $218m in 2023 and $214m in 2022.

It exported more than $287m of local ingredients like beef, cheese and buns to its restaurants in export markets.

Aotearoa was now one of the chain’s top six countries supplying beef for its restaurants globally.

Last year, the American-owned subsidiary used 6000 tonnes of locally-sourced beef for sale domestically, and it exported nearly 30,000 tonnes of it, making up around 10 percent of New Zealand’s total beef exports.

McDonald’s New Zealand’s head of impact and communications Simon Kenny said globally the chain served 70 million people a day, using 2 percent of the world’s beef.

He said price swings locally could have a material impact on the operating costs of its restaurants.

“Like everyone’s seen in the supermarkets, beef’s been one of the biggest ones,” he said. “The beef we’re buying right now is over 20 percent more expensive than it was at the start of the year.”

He said that meant the patty that went into the cheeseburger was 10 cents more expensive than at the start of the year.

“On a product at that kind of cost, it’s a significant input cost that goes up. So yeah, we’re not immune to it.”

StatsNZ data showed food prices increased 4.7 percent in the year to October, and beef was a hotspot of the economy farmers were capitalising on.

Further data revealed meat exports hit $10 billion in the year to October last year, driven by sheepmeat and beef up $625m.

Processor ANZCO in Taranaki’s Waitara made around 500,000 patties a day from local meat supplies, he said.

But Kenny said beef was a commodity it had to buy on the open market.

“Ironically, because of the global demand for beef from other McDonald’s markets, and what we’ve seen this year with the increase in costs… because of those global dynamics, that does impact us domestically.”

He said price increases were considered very carefully, and assured that burger sizes had not changed, as they had global size specifications to stick to.

“McDonald’s is known for value,” Kenny said. “There’s a whole load of costs that we have to factor in to the business with our franchisees every year and then go, okay how do you manage margins but also keep giving customers good value?

“There’s a popular myth that the Big Mac got smaller, and we like to joke that probably your hands got bigger than they were when you were six years old in the ’80s or ’90s.”

He said labour costs for its 10,000 New Zealand staff had also increased.

The subsidiary’s profits saw a 43 percent fall on 2023, to $59,779,000 in 2024, according to company register documents.

The corporate reported it was “facing challenges” in meeting its ambitious scope 3 emissions reduction targets in the latest purpose and impact report.

It wanted to reduce its scope 3 forest, land and agricultural emissions in its value chain by 16 percent off its 2018 baseline of 62,836,186 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide to 52,782,392 megatonnes of carbon dioxide before the end of 2030. It hit 60,245,138 megatonnes in 2024.

It also wanted to maintain no deforestation across its primary deforestation-linked commodities.

But Kenny said New Zealand beef farmers were ahead of many global competitors in this space especially with traceability, even compared to Australia.

“Beef represents when you look at scope 3 emissions, by far the biggest single contributor to our global emissions profile is beef farming.”

He said it was about encouraging sustainable agriculture by ensuring there was best practice on farms, and emissions data and measurement were the first point of call in doing so.

“Actually, New Zealand’s in a really good place when it comes to how we produce beef – we just we have to measure it better and report back better.

“That then helps us report back to our global team and feed into those kind of metrics, versus any radical differences and changes to farming systems.”

Kenny said farmers could “tweak” their systems to improve their impact, like considering regenerative farming principles and other emissions reductions

“I think in the next five years it’s going to be a lot of those kind of tweaks to farming systems and what we already do really well in New Zealand.”

Nearly 50 years ago, in 1976, McDonald’s opened its first restaurant in New Zealand in Porirua.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Dairy cooperative Fonterra has narrowed the mid-point price range of the Farmgate Milk Price to $9.50 a kilo of milk solids (kgMS) from $10.

The updated range for the 2025/26 season reflected downward pressure on global prices.

The forecast Farmgate Milk Price range was revised to to $9.00-$10.00 per kgMS from $9.00-$11.00 per kgMS.

“Fonterra started the season with a wide forecast range of $8.00-$11.00 per kgMS. The new midpoint of $9.50 per kgMS is in the middle of this range and remains a strong forecast for the season,” chief executive Miles Hurrell said.

Strong milk flows in New Zealand and other milk producing nations was behind the change.

“This increase in milk supply has put downward pressure on global commodity prices, with seven consecutive price drops in recent Global Dairy Trade events,” he said.

“We continue to be focused on maximising returns for farmer shareholders through both the Farmgate Milk Price and earnings. This includes through building strong relationships with customers who value our products, utilising price risk management tools, and optimising our product mix.”

The co-op also increased its forecast milk collections for the 2025/26 season by 20m kgMS to 1,545m.

“We continue to be focused on maximising returns for farmer shareholders through both the Farmgate Milk Price and earnings,” he said.

“This includes through building strong relationships with customers who value our products, utilising price risk management tools, and optimising our product mix.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Along the short path to Kelmarna community farm visitors are transported from suburbia to a rural oasis.

The 4 and a half acre block of land is nestled between the affluent Auckland suburbs of Ponsonby and Herne Bay, the last place you’d expect to find a farm.

The section is full of fruit trees, flower gardens, vegetables plots, and animals. As Adrian Roche shows First Up around chickens crowd around the gate of their coop hoping to be fed. Bees swarm around their hives in the spring sun.

“We really love having the bees here to help make all that pollination happen, and we love having the honey to sell” says Roche.

There’s even room for a few sheep. The breed, Wiltshires, were chosen because they’re sell shedding. That means they don’t have to be shorn or docked.

Kelmarna is completely organic, and produce, including fruit, vegetables and eggs are sold at the farm shop.

But plants aren’t the only thing being nurtured. The farm has a therapeutic gardening programme for people with mental health needs or intellectual disablities and participants in the programme can cultivate their own small plot of land.

“Some people need support and advice, and some people like the woman that looks after this plot neeeds absolutely no advice because she’s an amazing gardener” says Roche, pointing to one plot that is bursting with spring growth.

The farm’s compost is made on site, referred to as the ‘Soil Factory’.

To cut down on emissions an e-bike is used to collect food scraps from local restaurants and households. they scraps are then composted at Kelmarna and either used on the farm’s garden beds or sold.

Kelmarna’s history is almost as rich as the soil. The land was part of 3000acres Ngati Whatua gifted to the crown in 1840. In the 20th century it was part of St Vincent’s home of compassion.

“In modern speak you might call it an adoption processing centre” Roche says. “So this was common throughout New Zealand where women would be pregnant, out of wedlock, their families would generally organise them to go to places like the Home of Compassion here and have their babies and then the babies would be adopted out”

Some fruit trees from that era remain, while the shed where nuns once milked cows is now the lunch room for volunteers and workers.

The farm started in 1981 when Paul Lagerstedt lead the land from the council.

Adrian Roche began volunteering at Kelmarna in the 90s before becoming an employee in 2003.

“I’ve studied sustainability a lot and they always talk about, the importance of social goals and environmental goals” he says. That’s why I love this project so much, because it’s, doing both things. It’s got really strong social goals of supporting people, supporting the most vulnerable, and then communities, community space, and then also environmental goals about how to produce food that kind of improves the world rather than detracts from the world.

With Jo-Anne Hazel, Roche has written ‘Growing Together’ the story of the first 40 years of Kelmarna Farm.

While researching the book, old gardening diaries were uncovered, detailing early attempts at improving growing conditions. Using fish for fertiliser didn’t turn out so well after the nuns complained.

“They had to put the kibosh on that because the smell was sort of wafting over the neighbourhood and attracting a lot of flies, I suspect”

Fish wasn’t the only animal fertiliser tried.

“One of the most bizarre things was they were taking ashes from cremated animals from the zoo and using it. Very high in potassium maybe, I’m not sure, but it’s recorded there in the diaries”

More recent history hasn’t been without controversy, including 2019’s ‘cowgate’ episode.

“We had a bit of a moment in the glare of the media about selling some of our cattle for meat and then people complaining that the cattle were being turned into meat” Roche says.

The three steers were eventually rehomed, while Kelmarna escaped it’s own brush with death last year.

Community fundraising saved the farm, and a new 20 year lease was signed with Auckland council in April ensuring Kelmarna will continue thriving and growing into the future.

Kelmarna Farm will be hosting a series of ‘Growing Together’ Farm tours on December 5th and 6th led by co-author Adrian Roche.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

A Waikato pig farm has been fined $437,000 for persistent discharges of raw piggery effluent into the environment, including sewage tanks overflowing into waterways.

Rawhiti Environmental Park was convicted on eight charges in the Hamilton District Court on Thursday under the Resource Management Act.

The 810-hectare piggery near Te Aroha was subject to a years-long investigation by Waikato Regional Council for poor effluent management, including discharge to land and onto streams of the Kaimai-Mamaku Range.

The fine will be the largest imposed under the Resource Management Act in its 34-year history, following government changes this year that saw penalties for non-compliance ramp up and a history of non-compliance considered in future consenting.

Council regional compliance manager Patrick Lynch said it was one of the worst cases it had dealt with, with regard to the extreme environmental impact and repeated failures to comply.

“This offending has been appalling,” Lynch said.

“What I think happened in this situation is that [the company] got overwhelmed through lack of maintenance, lack of investment in infrastructure and intensification of the business.

“And then they’re really in a difficult place, which they placed themselves in, and it’s so hard to recover from that.”

Lynch said serious offending could have severe impacts on the Waihou River, soil health and marine life.

He said the record fine imposed by Judge Melinda Dickey was a “significant outcome”, and he hoped it would encourage better compliance on the farm and encourage other farming companies to take environmental management seriously.

“It’s a real deterrent for this company, but should be a deterrence for others as well.

“We’re really just imploring companies dealing with volumes of waste is just to have good infrastructure, have the infrastructure before you intensify, make sure it’s maintained, keep this stuff front of mind because this is the situation you can end up in.”

Lynch said he hoped the outcome would be meaningful for the community that had been patient through the process.

An enforcement order was imposed on the company to prohibit any future unlawful discharges, as the farm could continue to operate, and will face continued monitoring.

In a statement, a Rawhiti Environmental Park spokesperson said they were sorry the effluent issues occurred and accepted the court’s decision.

The statement said the issues began after the departure of a lease-holder who left the effluent system and infrastructure in poor condition and when Rawhiti resumed control and discovered the system was severely compromised, they moved quickly to put a long-term solution in place.

Rawhiti made the decision to keep the farm operating and invested more than $1 million in a state-of-the-art effluent system.

The spokesperson said Cyclone Gabrielle and the record rainfall through much of 2023 significantly delayed earthworks, which meant the new system could not be commissioned until December 2023.

They said the new system is now performing to a high standard and they are continuing to lift environmental performance including the planting of more than 2000 native plants along waterways to enhance biodiversity and protect water quality.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

A decision to allow the continued use of farrowing crates and mating stalls is the straw that broke the camel’s back for animals rights activsts.

In the past few months, associate agriculture minister Andrew Hoggard, responsible for animal welfare, has drawn intense criticism from animal welfare organisations, particularly for new pig welfare regulations.

The minister’s work to extend the use of sow farrowing crates and mating stalls was agreed to by select committee last week, giving farmers a decade before they need to comply with larger stalls pigs will spend less time in.

Now, animals rights organisation SAFE has asked Prime Minister Christopher Luxon to take the portfolio away from Hoggard, due to what it called a lack of impartiality and conflicts of interest.

“Hoggard’s persistent efforts to undermine and weaken [the Animal Welfare Act 1999] demonstrates clear and significant conflicts with this mandate,” it said in the complaint signed by chief executive Debra Ashton.

“During his tenure as the minister responsible for animal welfare, Minister Hoggard has gained a reputation for ignoring independent animal welfare science, disregarding the advice of the National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee (NAWAC), sidestepping equitable consultation, and contravening High Court rulings.”

But Hoggard said his farming background and CV showed he was qualified for the role.

“Well, I think SAFE wouldn’t be happy unless there was a vegan in the role who was totally opposed to farming effectively,” he said.

“They want an end to people owning pets, people being able to use animals for agriculture, and all the rest of it.”

From lobbyist to legislator, the Rangitīkei dairy farmer and former Federated Farmers president began his first term in parliament in late 2023.

“I think you compare me to anyone previously in any agriculture role in government, I think my CV stacks up rather impressively,” he said.

Luxon received the complaint from SAFE and said Hoggard had assured he was compliant with the Cabinet Manual 2023.

“The prime minister expects all his ministers to follow the Cabinet manual guidance. Mr Hoggard has assured the PM’s Office that he has followed that guidance,” a spokesperson said.

The Cabinet manual said ministers were responsible for ensuring that no conflicts existed or appeared to exist between their personal interests and their public duty.

Hoggard was also the minister for biosecurity, food safety and associate minister for the environment.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

As is often the case, especially in farming, “fresh is best” when hunting for sheep poo it seems.

Country Life joined Wairarapa sheep, beef, and deer farmer Paul Crick while he was out collecting samples to be analysed as part of a study by Beef and Lamb New Zealand that aims to better understand facial eczema.

He’s one of almost 300 farmers involved in the nationwide study.

“I’ve done a lot of things, but I never thought I’d be called a poo hunter,” he says with a laugh.

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What is facial eczema, or FE?

It’s caused by a toxin-producing fungus found in pasture which affects grazing livestock including, sheep, cows, deer, alpaca and goats.

The toxin impacts the liver, leading to significant health issues such as reduced fertility, weight loss, decreased growth, lower milk production, photosensitivity, sunburn, and in severe cases, death.

There is currently no cure for FE, which costs New Zealand farmers an estimated $332 million annually, according to Beef and Lamb.

“It loves warm, moist, humid conditions. It’s in the sward, animals come along, graze the pasture, ingest the toxin,” Crick explained.

From October, farmers collect about 10 samples from the same mob around different paddocks every couple of weeks. FE remains present in the paddocks until about late May, Crick said.

“What we’re trying to do here is build up a bit of a database and knowledge about where the spores are and hence that’s why we’re collecting the poo samples because we’ll find it in the poo samples themselves.”

There’s an art to finding the right samples as Country Life discovered.

Apart from freshness, it’s important to differentiate smaller lamb poo – more like Smartie pellets – from that of the mature mob. More liquid-like samples are difficult to collect but that’s what the blue gloves are for.

“The ewes tend to like camping in their spot,” Crick said as he hunted around for the perfect specimen.

He got it, and it’s even warm.

“That’s hot out of the oven that one.”

FE is particularly challenging for farmers because “you can’t see it” and there’s no cure – zinc can be used as a preventative measure.

At Glenside, Crick also breeds his own FE-tolerant rams as part of Arahura Sheep Genetics.

He said they wanted to “front foot” the issue and saw that farmers can make good progress quickly through bringing these traits into their flock.

“Good genetics is one tool in the toolbox and there’s other tools that farmers can use.”

It’s the third season he’s been involved in the study.

FE is prevalent in Wairarapa but farmers don’t know how much so.

“It’s here down through the North Island and they’ve actually found spore counts down in Otago.”

Twelve farms in Wairarapa were involved in the first year and all detected spores.

The next season one farm went through the season with none, while one of the 11 that did have spores even presented with clinical signs of FE.

Crick said his first season results came back with no spores detected and he worried it was a “waste of time”, but he said knowing where FE isn’t is just as important as knowing where it is and the conditions that surround it.

“We took our last sample at the end of May and I thought ‘God there’s going to be nothing’.

“It came back with a spore count of over 100,000. It really made me think.”

Beef and Lamb principal scientist Dr Cara Brosnahan said there’s already been some interesting findings from the study which revealed early signs that elevation, pasture height, and even neighbouring farm’s spore counts can impact FE.

She said this year, the final season, is “critical” to building on their understanding.

Beef and Lamb covers all testing costs, including sampling kits and prepaid return courier packaging.

As part of the study farmers also receive regular fungal spore count results, along with an anonymised nationwide map that tracks FE spore levels.

It’s the work of parasitologists like Sarah Riddy.

She and her team at Awanui Labs in Palmerston North process up to 260 samples sent in by farmers each fortnight during the peak FE period, the results of which, along with forms detailing things like breed, grazing, height and type of pasture, inform the nationwide FE map.

“Each of the farmers send in 10 samples per mob and that allows us to give a sort of overall pool value,” she explained.

“It gives them an idea of what’s happening in the mob rather than in each individual animal.”

At the lab, she weighs out one gram from each of the different samples to add up to a total of 10 grams, which is then mixed and diluted with 90 millilitres of water and spun to allow the sample to distribute evenly.

It’s then loaded onto a chamber and analysed under microscope – a grid helps her count the number of spores manually.

“One thing parasitologists are good at is microscopy, we spend our whole days on a microscope counting. So we’re very good with numbers.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand