Marlborough farmer and member of the newly-formed Rabbit Co-ordination Group Jim Ward said such a move would focus attention on the pest and heighten its profile.
Speaking at a recent Federated Farmers High Country conference at Mt Cook, he estimated 13,000ha of Marlborough exceeded council rabbit density limits, 25,000ha of Canterbury and 80,000ha of Otago.
The Otago Regional Council-owned Regional Services estimates it will do control work on between 8000ha and 10,000ha this winter.
Any hope the Government would once again contribute funds to control the pest were dashed at a recent meeting with ministers, but now attention was focused on making better use of existing control methods and co-ordinating future management through the Rabbit Co-ordination Group.
The group consists of representatives of the Department of Conservation, Land Information New Zealand, Marlborough District Council, ECan, Otago Regional Council, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry Biosecurity, national pest control agencies, Federated Farmers and Landcare Research.
Mr Ward said there did not appear much hope of new, virulent strains of rabbit haemorrhagic disease being discovered, despite work in Australia, leaving no new options for rabbit control.
"The long-term solution is we're back to using conventional control. The question is how much and how efficiently can we do it?"
Mr Ward said carrots were short in Marlborough as cropping land had been converted into vineyards.
"This leaves pindone as our only option. If it fails, then we are in big trouble," he said.
But, he was equally concerned that the Department of Conservation (Doc) would not allow the use of oat-based baits on or near public land it manages because of the risk of bird by-kill.
He was keen to lobby Doc, but a Doc employee at the meeting said that would be a waste of time as it had already made its decision.
Of more importance was the loss of public support for 1080 should there be a large bird by-kill.
Landcare Research wildlife ecology and epidemiology scientist John Parkes told farmers that unlike possum control, the tools and methods used to kill rabbits were largely unchanged since the 1960s.
Thirty years ago a standard possum control operation would have used 30kg of un-dyed carrot bait applied per hectare, but this has now dropped to between 1.5kg and 3kg of dyed cereal bait a hectare, with research under way to see if that could be lowered further to 0.25kg a ha.
Mr Parkes said bait rates for rabbits were still about 40kg a hectare despite rabbits being notoriously phobic and bait shy.
There was the potential to save on costs and benefit from bait shyness, by reducing sowing rates, but there had been little research.
Mr Parkes said work was also needed to reduce bait fragmentation - small chips of bait that get broken off that carry a sub-lethal dose.
Funding from the Foundation for Research Science and Technology will pay for work on the ideal dose of 1080 and pindone, bait size and distribution, pre-feeding, secondary control and integration with rabbit haemorrhagic disease.