Jamie Mackay: The Country host on the bird flu case that was discovered in Otago

The Ministry for Primary Industries says it's possible there'll be more cases of bird flu at an Otago egg farm.

The culling of 80,000 chickens at the Mainland Poultry property in Moeraki will begin tomorrow.

The Country's Jamie Mackay explained this won't create too much trouble for the sector - as there's millions of layer hens in the country.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And the Country host Jamie McKay is with us this evening. Hi,
Jamie Goda, Jack, any update for us on the blue
bird flu case in Otago? Is it spreading? If they
found it anywhere else?

Speaker 2 (00:11):
No, nowhere else at that stage. I spoke to Raysmith,
the director general of MPI at lunchtime on my show.
I've just watched the network news feed on it of
begetting press releases from MPI. So as it stands at
the moment, Jack, we're talking eighty thousand birds that are
going to have to be eradicated out of one hundred

(00:31):
and sixty thousand on that farm, that mainland poultry farm
at Moraki. But if you're worried about a lack of
eggs on the market because of this, just call your
jets a weee. But at the moment, because we've got
like four million layer hens in this country, so that's
only two percent. Obviously, if that number grows, it will
be concerned. I just wonder whether there might even be

(00:53):
more concerned Jack, if it gets into the chicken meat industry.
Raysmith told me today, and I think I picked this
up correctly. We have one hundred million chickens for meat production,
which sounds a hell of a lot. That's like twenty
chickens for each of us to eat here in New Zealand.
But if it gets in there, it could have sub ramifications.

(01:14):
But look, MPI, to be fair to them, I've got
a pretty good track record in recent times with m
bovus and even with COVID tracing and all that sort
of stuff, I guess for shutting these things down. So
hopefully they can shut this one down. And it's just
just that farm affected.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
The government's third and final Farmer Friendly Restoring Farmer Confidence
Tour meeting is taking place tomorrow in y Mumu. So
what are they hoping to achieve?

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Well, that's a good question, Jack I said to Prime
Minister Christopher Luxen on the show last week. Are you
effectively preaching to the choir because you know he's going
to get one hundred percent support of these meetings? Bearing
in mind is said third and final. They've done Mystery
Creek Glass Tuesday. I think it was ash Burton Friday,

(02:02):
and then this one at the way Mumu Field days
sight just outside of Gore and Southland heartland kind of
national or coalition government country. Look, I think the idea
is to get amongst the farmers, share the love, get
them off farm. Some of them have had a bit
of a tough time weatherwise. Give him a barbie and
it's a chance for the farmers to rub shoulders not

(02:23):
only with the Prime Minister but with the Minister of
Agriculture and Trade Todd McLay and also the President of
Federated Farmers Wayne Langford. So I suspect, being a Southland
and the South Jacket, there'll be a pretty good turn
out there and they'll get plenty of support. But they're
not getting it in other places, but they're certainly getting

(02:43):
it from the farmers.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
Global Dairy Trade Auction tonight. What are you expecting, Jamie.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
Well, greater minds than mine have thought about this. Jack
the guy I uses Mike McIntyre at Chardon. I've got
to give him a shameless plug. He's as regular as clockwork.
He texts me every Tuesday before GDT auctions. Look, he's
picking one to two percent rise across the board, led
by the powder's whole milk powder, skim milk powder. They
could be a bit stronger to drag the average index up.

(03:12):
The futures for the twenty four to twenty five season
jack currently sit at ten dollars and ten cents and
that is good, good money in anyone's in anyone's box.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
And Jamie Beef and Lamed New Zealand are calling for
changes to New Zealand's climate change policies.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yeah. Well, they're saying that we're out of step internationally
with other key areas. And this is a report that
they've had commissioned with sixteen other or sixteen jurisdictions, that's
effectively fifteen countries port plus the EU. They're saying, you know,
the same sort of stuff we've heard for a long time,

(03:49):
that that our beef and lamb from farm to plate
is amongst the lowest in the world in terms of
absolute emissions. The other interesting fact is that sheep and
beef farms have produced their emission and this is by
attrition by thirty five percent since nineteen ninety when we
first put a peg in the sand around climate change.

(04:09):
Kate Ackland says, we're not being let off the hook.
That's the narrative that's out there. She's saying, no other
country apart from Denmark, is currently intending to put a
price on agricultural emissions. We will by the year twenty
thirty under current policy, and in the likes of Denmark,
those farmers are going to be have their their emissions

(04:30):
pricing offset big time by billions of dollars of subsidies
to farmers. Interestingly, Jack, of all those sixteen jurisdictions, only
New Zealand doesn't have a limit on the amount of
forestry offsets available to fossil fuel emitters, and many have
policies aimed at limiting the conversion of productive farms into

(04:51):
carbon forestry. Expect some announcement from the government tomorrow, maybe
Chris By, Christopher Luxeon and Todd McClay at ye murmur
on the changes to those sitting rules.

Speaker 1 (05:01):
Thanks for your time, Jamie, appreciate it as ever, mate.
That is host of the Country, Jamie mackay.

Speaker 2 (05:06):
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