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February 24, 2025 • 15 mins

Internal parasites and drench resistance are serious threats to livestock production. In part three of our series, The Country’s Rowena Duncum is joined by B+LNZ Principal Scientist (Animal Health Research) Dr Cara Brosnahan to look at the B+LNZ Research livestock parasite management groups – launched across the country to promote best practices and improve control strategies.

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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The Insights Are on Parasites with Beef and Lamb New Zealand,
powered by the Country. Hello and welcome into episode three
of Insights on Parasites, our new special podcast series in
association with Beef and Lamb New Zealand. We've already spoken
to Ginny Dedanski about the Wormways program. We've spoken to
doctor Susan Keeling to kick off this entire series, and

(00:24):
joining me now is doctor Kara Brosna and the principal
scientist for animal health research at Beef and Lamb New Zealand.
Hello Kara, welcome in. Hi, thanks for having me again,
my absolute pleasure. Now, for those who didn't catch out
earlier podcast series on facial Exma, I'm going to ask
you to go back to the beginning. Tell me a
bit about yourself, Kara, and how you came to be

(00:46):
involved at Beef and Lamb New Zealand.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Yes, so, I am primarily a scientist in animal health
and I spent a lot of my career in the
laboratories for the Ministry of Primary Industries, so diagnosing animal
health diseases and investigating what they actually means for the animal.
But I did grow up on a sheet beef and

(01:10):
copping farm in South Canterbury. So I guess it's no
surprise that I've kind of come back round to being
a part of the industry again. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
I was just saying to someone the other day, once
you're involved in the primary sector in New Zealand, I
was like, it's almost like a cult. You don't want
to leave, but even if you do leave, you come back.
And I mean cult in a good sense. I couldn't
think of another better way of using a better terminology. Cara,
You're right, Hopefully no one takes offense to that one.

(01:39):
I love agriculture and I love being part of it.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Hey.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
One thing that is a concern though, and we've been
having this conversation so you're now poised to continue it
is around internal parasites and drench resistant obviously very serious
threats to livestock production and beef and lamb research. I've
actually done this amazing program around livestock parasite management groups

(02:05):
right across the country. What are these management groups and
kind of tell me a bit about them.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
Yeah, so these livestock parasite management groups are really a
way for better and lam New Zealand to support farmers
dealing with parasite management. And that's really, as you say,
primarily drench resistance at this stage. So because drenches are
failing on an increasing number of farms and for decades
one solution has worked, which has been drench and now

(02:35):
that's not working, so many farmers are having to adjust
their farm system to enable that sustainable parasite management. And yeah,
without having that I guess silver bullet approach. So yeah,
I guess as we all know, change is really hard.
So when we go from doing something that is quite
automatic to something that we really need to put more

(02:56):
thought into and different approaches potentially each season, you know,
we need a lot more knowledge and confidence in the area.
And this is what these groups are intending to do,
is to grow the knowledge and confidence and parasite management
of the members as well as hopefully their wider networks,
but also for those farmers in the groups, having the

(03:18):
support of the farmers in the group, but also the
subject matter experts that we get in and to really
have those deep discussions about parasite management at a farm
system level. So you know, if I try and do this,
what does this mean for another part of my farm?
So it's based on the Wormwise principles for improving animal

(03:39):
production and management. And I guess the other thing, you know,
wormwise principles, there is a lot of potential leavers that
people can pull, but it's knowing what those are and
when to use them and what they actually mean in
your farm system. So you know, it's not an easy
thing to just change. So really need to provide that
support to farmer Kara.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
What are these groups doing? How do they know if
what their trialing is working or what they're talking about
is actually going to help in the future.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
Yeah, so that's a big focus for us. We really
wanted to know that these groups were actually having an
impact and what that impact was. So for the first
you know, we started the first pilot group almost three
years ago, two and a half years ago in the
wader Dappa and that's facilitated by their Serra Sutherland, and

(04:31):
we am in collaboration with Sculletti, who is a company
who helps with monitoring and evaluation of groups and data analysis.
So they helped us put together a plan so that
we could really understand, you know, how the group is
progressing over time and what it actually means to be

(04:51):
in the groups. So from the After the first year
of that pilot group, we found that all farmers made
a change to their parasite management. Some of them might
have been quite small, you know, extra monitoring, whereas some
of them were quite big in terms of you know,
potentially changing their whole crop and rotation. So there was
a range of things that people did, but everyone made

(05:12):
a change, which is really positive their knowledge and confidence
of parasite management and parasites as a whole group, and
they really valued those opportunities to share and collaborate with
other farmers and also sharing the information and insights to
their wider networks. So based on the success of that group,
we were we put out the call to have another

(05:36):
seven groups around the country and there's now two in
the South Island and five in the North Island. And
with that especially, you know, learning from that pilot group,
we really wanted to make sure that we got the
right facilitator in the group. Not only did they have
to be an experts in parasites, especially at that farm
system's level, they also needed to make you know, we

(05:59):
needed to make sure they were going to engage and
challenge the group for three years. Three years is a
long time and we want to make sure that farmers
are getting values when they're in these groups. I guess
another aspect for us, you know that kind of getting
back from the groups form the research team is to
understand the gaps of knowledge that are there, especially because

(06:21):
you know, drench resistance, a lot of these things on
farm haven't you know, maybe haven't been trialed to some extent.
So you know, what can we learn from the group
themselves in terms of those research gaps so that we
implement those into our larger parasite management program.

Speaker 1 (06:37):
Yeah, well, yeah, you must be really thrilled, Kara, with
the success of these groups, going from one group to
seven others now around the country. Did you and envisage
that was going to be the result so quickly?

Speaker 2 (06:52):
I mean you're always hopeful, but yeah, you just never know.
And I mean we were so fortunate as well with
the wide rappor groups. They were so you know, from
the start, they were very open and you know, sharing
all of their stories, which you know, they're not not
great stories to year sometimes, but they were really open

(07:12):
and it meant the group could learn quite quickly. And
I've been lucky enough to go to a lot of
these meetings you know, particularly in the first year and
a half, I think I went to everyone. They've really
sick to me. But it's amazing listening to the group's
conversations from that very first meeting to now, it's just,
you know, it's an entirely different conversation and really it's

(07:36):
really exciting to see where they've come.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
Yeah, fantastic, And you know, once again, this is an
issue that you can't kind of address in isolation. It
actually takes farmers to be brave and open up and
share their experiences and their stories, what they've learned, you know,
through success and also through failure, and actually be open
to being part of that process for the greater good.

(07:59):
Are you hoping to be able to extend this beyond
the current groups again, or as you say, is it
that balancing act of making sure you've got the right
people to ensure the group has actually got longevity and success.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
Yeah, So that's what we're spending some time thinking about now,
is what does happen after that three years? You know,
is it that the group continues as they are, or
do we try to progress that to the next level
and really push what, you know, what different farm systems
could look like and bring more of that research element in.
So that's discussions that we'll be having with the facilitator

(08:32):
in the group over the coming months so that we
understand what they need as well as what we need.
So it's that real codevelopment part of it.

Speaker 1 (08:41):
Yeah, brilliant, love it. So what would success look like
for these groups? There's probably quite a list of different
things you're hoping for, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
One hundred percent, and I'm sure you know, success for
some people in the group might be a little different,
But ultimately we want to see that farmers in the
group and also their wider networks, so who they talk
to at the pub or you know, the contractors coming
onto their farm, you know they're having those discussions, and
that the farmers in the group particularly really know those

(09:15):
leavers that they can pull, what works on their farm,
when to actually pull those levers, and what to do
when they think the wales might fall off again. So
it's quite you know, it's not an easy task, but
that's kind of what success would look like. Yeah, and
I think just recognizing that parasite management is complex, but
we do know a lot of things that work. So again,

(09:38):
coming back to those when wise principles. We know that
if those are applied then that will ensure sustainable parasite management.
But yeah, as I've said before, it's not you know,
it's not a recipe. It's more like a pick and
max menu. So it does require a lot of thought
to be taken towards your parasite management. And not necessarily

(10:01):
you know, you have one menu, one year you might
have something completely different due to climate or stock on
your farm or whatever it might be. So it's not
a set and forget. So, yeah, it is a work
in progress, and I think just recognizing that and if
you have the knowledge and confonence of that baseline parasite
management or parasites, you know, even just the life cycle

(10:23):
a paraplet, what parasites are present, all of those things
really contribute to being successful and sustainable parasite management.

Speaker 1 (10:30):
Yeah, what other aspects are you focused on in these groups?

Speaker 2 (10:34):
Car?

Speaker 1 (10:34):
I imagine there's also a lot of collaboration, not only
with the farmers and the facilitator, but outside organizations as well.

Speaker 2 (10:43):
Yeah, definitely, so the groups themselves, they you know, we
have goals that we want the group to achieve, but
it's very much the facilitator and the group deciding what
they need, so they might bring in different experts at
different times, so they might want to really focus on
genetics and how can they implement resilience or resistance in

(11:05):
their flock and understanding that befare yet could be working
with you to do some farmax modeling to understand the
potential cost of drench resistance and if they tweak some things,
what could that mean for their system. So there are
a lot of options for the groups themselves and that
will be directed by the farmers and the facilitator.

Speaker 1 (11:24):
What about the facilitators themselves, did they chat amongst themselves
around the different groups.

Speaker 2 (11:32):
Yes, So we have a face to face catch up
with the facilitators once a year so that we can
learn or they can learn from each other, so sharing
their success stories and maybe what they're finding challenging or
things that they didn't realize would come up but has
come up, so that we have that collaboration between them.
Because I think that's the other thing is that it's

(11:54):
also about learning and growing the facilitators in their parasite
management but also their facilit location so that we have
a good network of those as well. For farmers. We
also have like a WhatsApp group, so we can share
information there as well. So yeah, as you say, very
much sharing of as much information as possible to make
these groups of success and to help farmers out.

Speaker 1 (12:17):
Yeah, and what about beyond the three years, do you
envisage that that support will remain ongoing? I guess they've
been on quite a journey together by that stage.

Speaker 2 (12:27):
Yeah, exactly, and I mean some of them. You know,
the groups might continue by themselves, or it could transition
into more of a focus group. But I know groups,
for example, groups that Jenny Ddunski or Dave Leswick have
had in the past. You know, they initially I believe

(12:48):
they were through the Red Meat Private partnership where they started,
but they're still ongoing. So it just shows the potential
for you know, if you get these the right mix
of people and they're still learning from each other, they
can still continue on to have those really good conversations
and be successful.

Speaker 1 (13:04):
Yeah, fantastic, Kara. Where can people go for more information
about a group near them?

Speaker 2 (13:11):
Yeah, so if you contact us in the research team,
which is research at bslammz dot com. The current groups
are full at the moment, but we're definitely interested in
understanding the need out there, so we can get a
wait list and you know, when more funding is available,
we could increase the number of groups where there is

(13:32):
a need. So yeah, we're definitely keen to find out
if people be interested in being a part of these groups.

Speaker 1 (13:38):
Yeah, what if people are particularly passionate about this? Are
you looking for interest I guess in people wanting to
become facilitators, Like what would make a good facilitator?

Speaker 2 (13:51):
Yes, So with these groups, we went through a process
where we put out a request for tender essentially, so
people had to put in a proper and tell us
why they are a great facilitator. What we've learned from
the groups so far is, as I said, you need
someone who will we just challenge the group, but also

(14:11):
think about parasites from that farm system's approach and also
be really engaging for the groups. So yeah, there's a
few different aspects to being a good facilitator, but yeah,
there are some great people out there, So definitely if
people are keen to be a facilitator as well, we'd
be more than happy to hear from them.

Speaker 1 (14:33):
Yeah. Absolutely. And also, Kara, where can people go to
find out more information about all of this?

Speaker 2 (14:41):
Yeah, so if you're interested in any of the parasite
management programs, just head to the Beef and Them website
and go to the knowledge hub and type in parasite
management and all the information will come up there.

Speaker 1 (14:54):
Brilliant and of course both in Lame New Zealand are
on your social media channels as well, and check them out.
Doctor Kara Brosnan, Principal Scientist Animal Health Research at Beef
and Lamb New Zealand, thank you so much for your
time today. You're back with me again for the final
episode next week looking at targeted selective treatment. I look

(15:16):
forward to it, but thanks for your time today.

Speaker 2 (15:18):
Thanks a lot, really look forward to that too.

Speaker 1 (15:21):
Insights are Parasites with Beef and Lamb New Zealand, powered
by the Country
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