Long battle brings Molesworth milestone

OSPRI New Zealand

Molesworth Station, New Zealand’s largest working farm, has reached a major milestone — its cattle herd is free of bovine tuberculosis (TB) for the first time in 40 years.

OSPRI New Zealand and Molesworth Station operator Pāmu Farms of New Zealand (Landcorp Farming Limited) recently announced the success after four decades of the combined and extensive efforts of many people to get to this point.

This milestone comes after Molesworth Station’s long history of bovine TB infection in its livestock, dating back to the early 1960s. It has had a continuous infected status since 1972, the longest in New Zealand.

Bovine TB is a persistent disease, and New Zealand has emerged as a global leader in its control and management. This success has been achieved by large-scale possum control to remove the infection from the possum population, coupled with a comprehensive livestock testing programme, patiently reducing the numbers of infected animals through on-farm skin and blood testing.

OSPRI manages the TBfree programme on behalf of the government and the farming industry.

Chief executive Sam McIvor says Molesworth’s journey to TB freedom is a staged process, and this is a significant step along the path to TB freedom.

“The achievement is a massive one, for Pāmu, the dedicated people of Molesworth - especially manager Jim Ward - and all the OSPRI staff and their former colleagues from all those years back,” Sam says.

Pāmu chief executive Mark Leslie says Pāmu seeks to innovate and ensure farming activities contribute positively to ecosystems and communities.

“The scale that Pāmu has enables us to drive innovation for the benefit of the wider industry, and our operations at Molesworth are no exception. The station has been home to several significant research projects on the reduction and elimination of bovine TB, and control has involved innovating and trying different approaches.

“I’d like to acknowledge Molesworth farm manager Jim Ward, who has been on farm for over half the period of infection. Jim has been a key driver of this status outcome, but of course, it’s been a collaborative effort.

“The credit for this tremendous success goes to all the people and organisations who have worked for a very long time to make this TB result a reality,” Mark says.

Molesworth Station is managed by state farmer Pāmu (Landcorp Farming Limited), and is New Zealand’s largest working farm, spanning 180,787 hectares in the mountainous landscape of the northern South Island high country.

While possum control in the area has been completed, there is still some ongoing surveillance work of both wildlife and livestock to confirm that TB is finally gone from the landscape.