Beef and Dairy farmers have come up with a plan to tackle the cost of eradicating the cow disease Mycoplasma bovis

It will cost about 880-million dollars.

The Government will fork out 68 percent of that, and farmers the rest.

Of the remaining 32 percent, the dairy sector will meet 94 percent of the costs or 272 million dollars - and beef farmers six percent.

Chairman of DairyNZ Jim van der Poel says that's a hefty amount, but says the cost of doing nothing, would have been a lot higher.

He says the economic cost of not eradicating was estimated to be around 1.3 billion dollars and all that would have been borne by farmers.