Rockley two years on

THOSE words ring true for Ashley, Chris and Sally Kirk who have persevered and continued fighting since their highly-reputable Rockley Brahman stud was placed under quarantine after three of their stud cows tested positive to Bovine Johne’s Disease (BJD) on November 26, 2012.

Since that fateful day the Kirk’s and their Bajool-based operation have been put through the ringer emotionally and financially.

The Kirk’s entire breeding herd had to be restarted from scratch and to this day the BJD situation in Queensland has not been resolved.

But despite the series of crushing blows the Kirk’s have been dealt; their determination and courage in the face of adversity has seen them through their darkest days with a ray of light now in sight.

The North Queensland Register’s Matt Sherrington spoke to Ashley Kirk recently in regards to how the family have persevered and how the rebuilt Rockley herd is progressing moving forward.

How badly has the quarantine affected you and your family personally?

Ashley Kirk: Personally the quarantine has had a devastating and significant impact on our family and business.

We still feel angry and frustrated, and are dumbfounded that two years on, we continue to be in quarantine!

Two years following the discovery nothing has been solved. They (Queensland Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry John McVeigh and the state government) are never going to eradicate Johne's disease.

Policy has not changed, producers are still at risk, 98 per cent of Queensland beef herds remain untested, the source of infection (either our infection, the Sarina, or the Hollins Bay infection) remains unknown, and the compensation is woefully inadequate.

In our view the government has two options; change the flawed policy and have no future compensation for producers, or retain the policy and fully compensate producers.

I am certain that producers would not want to contribute to a biosecurity fund that will be of little benefit to them when they actually wish to make a claim.

We have been consumed by the regulations surrounding the disease and it has turned our business on its head in terms of how we envisaged running our operation. The pain has only just started to ease as we get closer to selling cattle, rather than sending them to the meat works.

As time goes by and more information comes to hand regarding the disease, it only highlights the need for BJD to be managed by producers.

And what kind of financial ramifications has the quarantine decision placed on the business?

Ashley Kirk: Financially we have had our income halved due to the loss of our annual bull sales.

This has put substantial pressure on us and been a challenging and costly journey as we begin to rebuild and expand our business.

We had an independent appraisal conducted on all our cattle this year and used this to apply for compensation.

Our claim totalled $1.2 million, minus their meat works value and we are now in the process of lodging another claim for an additional $1.2 million.

To date we have received the capped amount of $100, 000 with no further discussion of receiving another cent.

Do you think BJD concessions should be increased? And should the funds be made made more easily accessible?

Ashley Kirk: We strongly believe that all those affected should be fully compensated for their losses.

I think it’s grossly unfair that we should suffer the financial burden.

Affected producers are still waiting for the Newman Government to honour their statement that was made on the 18th of January 2013: "the Newman Government does not expect individual producers to bear the cost of eradication programs that ultimately benefit all of the cattle industry".

When I met Dr McVeigh initially at the first big industry meeting in Rockhampton after the initial case was confirmed I voiced to him that I felt we were "taking the hit" for the rest of the industry and I continue to strongly feel this way.

I am unable to understand the advantage we hold in Queensland by remaining "protected" when it is endemic in other beef producing countries such as the USA, New Zealand and Europe.

At no point have I had anybody approach me and said - 'Thanks mate, we really appreciate you carrying the burden for the "greater good of the industry", we're so much better off. wWe are pretending to eradicate Johne's disease from Queensland!'

If other beef producers, the industry, and/or government are not prepared to contribute to a fund to compensate affected producers; then they are voting with their pocket and supporting the fact that the benefits they accrue from the Protected Zone (PZ) regulations are not suffice to compensate affected producer’s costs due to PZ regulations.

Do you think buyers will still associate your stud name with BJD or do you think they'll be open minded in regards to buying from you again?

Ashley Kirk: We understand potential clients may be apprehensive about purchasing our cattle when we re-enter the market.

We can only assure them that we have worked with Biosecurity Queensland and have complied with all the regulations and movement restrictions that have been enforced upon our business. At the first clinical signs of possible BJD we voluntarily had the cows tested.

In hindsight we are now able to recall a single possible case prior to that, a bull purchased from the USA who died over twenty years ago in 1991. Obviously at this time, BJD was not on our radar therefore a single case of scouring was no cause for concern. Yes, we had not done any herd testing, but neither had 98 per cent of Queensland beef producers.

As far as we are aware, nothing we’ve done has been identified as a contributor to the introduction of BJD that other seed stock producers are now avoiding. The disease is being driven underground.

In addition to the almost 15,000 tests conducted in Queensland there has been at least several thousand females in contact with Rockley herds tested in Western Australia, Northern Territory and New South Wales and no infection has been detected in any in-contact females aside from Hollins Bay which is a different genotype to that found at Rockley.

We’ve had, and continue to have, tremendous moral support amongst the Brahman breeding community and I can only hope that this will follow through to our sales in the future.

The vast majority of cattle producers that have any understanding of the National Johne's Disease Program realise that it is driven by bureaucrats who do not want to acknowledge the existence and prevalence of the disease.

Unfortunately producers like us, through no fault of their own, have been caught up in this issue and have been the ones to suffer.

Do you think the state government and Minister McVeigh overreacted to the situation, and why?

Ashley Kirk: Yes, I do think the government overreacted and could have handled the situation significantly differently.

I believe Minister McVeigh was misled and ill advised by his department on this issue.

We are bitterly disappointed with his lack of leadership when he was presented with both sides of the situation.

We need to stop the quarantining of producer's businesses.

Australian producers are more than capable of managing this insignificant disease at farm level just as they have been with diseases such as PestiVirus and Leptospirosis.

Agforce, which guides the Minister along with other industry bodies, has chosen to focus on Queensland remaining "protected" and has lost sight of those producers who have been financially and personally affected.

It really astonishes me that industry bodies such as Agforce, who are supposedly looking out for producers on the ground, are failing to push for full compensation.

How is the new breeding herd progressing?

Ashley Kirk: Through our own hard work and determination, we have made great advancements in our breeding operation over the last two years.

We’ve been working hard using In vitro fertilisation to produce a new "clean" herd and we are exceptionally happy with what we have coming in the near future.

Our greatest and long-term challenge will be building up our herd bull numbers which may take up to 10 years.

We made the decision to purchase some quality breeders from the Bungoona to restart our herd bull base.

As advised, we are in the process of phasing out our entire breeding herd and will do this gradually over a 10 year period.

Most people think we can just test our way out of this but we have to send all our breeders to meat works at some stage. Any cattle bred out of these suspect breeders are all bound for slaughter.

Despite all this, it is highly unlikely that there has been a spread of BJD from Rockley (only three bulls have shown to be shedding out of 789 trace forward bulls tested, and testing of at least 20 000 in-contact females in WA and QLD with no reactors).

You said in last year in an interview with Fairfax Media that you were hoping to be back in business by 2015 with the aim of selling at Beef 2015, do you think you're on track to achieve those goals?

Ashley Kirk: We’ve made the decision not to participate in Beef Week 2015.

We applied for a particular display site, we missed out on that and the alternate site that was offered to us was not suitable.

We’ve chosen to channel our energy in to the World Brahman Congress 2016 and will be selling 17 stud sires at Rockhampton Brahman Week later in 2016 as well.

Has there been any silver lining for you all regarding the experience you’ve all been through?

Ashley Kirk: The only positive to take away from this experience is that for our stud to survive we have had to multiply our top genetics through IVF, more so than previous years.

We can really speed up that genetic gain and develop an even line of cattle out of our leading, proven cow lines.

We really feel like we will have some new and exciting genetics on offer in 2016.

Not being able to participate in sales has driven us to come back bigger and better than ever.

We are even more passionate, committed and dedicated to breeding quality red Brahman cattle.