"Impractical, dysfunctional and weeks away".
An offer of free baits for New South Wales farmers facing a large and ongoing mouse plague may not be all it seemed, with the offer only extending to a poison currently banned for use in Australia.
The plague has wreaked havoc across vast areas of NSW and southern Queensland for the last six months, with mice expected to have caused up to $100 million in damage so far, with some farmers having had to forfeit hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of crops as a result.
NSW Health has also seen a spike in the number of case of mouse-borne diseases such as leptospirosis from the plague, with 39 cases already recorded.
In response, the NSW Government released a $50 million relief package in May, which included rebates of up to $1000 for the cost of buying baits and expanded workshops to educate farmers on the best eradication strategies.
Households and small businesses can now claim the rebates for bait purchases made after February 1, 2021, with primary producers able to claim a single rebate of up to $1000 where their business and residence share an address.
The mouse bait rebate will be available to households, small businesses and primary producers located in the mouse impacted Central Tablelands, Central West, Northern Tablelands, North West, Western, Riverina and Murray regions, and select Local Government Areas in Hunter and South East Local Land Service regions.
But the centrepiece of the program was an initiative to treat grain supplied by farmers with bromadiolone, with the plan for the poisoned grain to be used either in a trail or in bait stations surrounding a crop.
The announcement came with the caveat that the NSW Government was seeking approval from the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) for the use of bromadiolone as a broadacre mouse bait.
While bromadiolone is capable of killing rodents within 24 hours of exposure, it is currently only registered for use indoors and around sheds.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that bromadiolone accumulates in the food chain, meaning that any animals that eat poisoned mice were also at risk of dying.
The alternative, zinc phosphide poisons, do not accumulate in the body, though they are currently banned for application within 50 metres of native vegetation.
Minister for Agriculture Adam Marshall said plans to provide farmers with bromadiolone-treated grain for perimeter baiting are progressing but remain dependant on approval from the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority.
“Bromadiolone perimeter baiting is a second layer of defence on top of the doubled rate of zinc phosphide application,” Mr Marshall said.
“Soon farmers will be able to get their grain treated free of charge to protect their hard-sown crops from vermin.”
APVMA chief executive Lisa Croft told a Senate Estimates hearing last week that the Authority was assessing two applications for emergency permits sent by the NSW Department of Primary Industries for the use of bromadiolone.
“All permits must meet the statutory safety, efficacy and trade criteria, and an assessment to determine that the APVMA is satisfied in this regard is always carried out prior to a permit being issued,” she says
“This includes an environmental safety assessment to ensure the safety of potential non-target impact species.”
The delay has led NSW Farmers vice president Xavier Martin to accuse the NSW Government of potentially missing the window to act, adding that the plague will likely cut the farmgate value of NSW’s winter crop by more than $1 billion.
While NSW Farmers had initially welcomed the policy announcement, its reliance on the APVMA granting the permit would take too long, he says, as it comes just ahead of sowing season for winter crops.
“NSW Farmers has consistently said the simplest, safest and most timely way for the State Government to assist farmers would be through providing rebates of up to $25,000 per farm business to cover 50 per cent of the cost of zinc phosphide bait,” Martin says.
“The State Government’s assistance package is impractical, dysfunctional and weeks away, which is not helping farmers who need support right now to drive mouse numbers down and break this horrible unrelenting cycle.”
“Each day we delay in taking effective action to control these mice will increase economic losses and the likelihood we will still be battling mice come Christmas time,” he says.