The new Federal Minister of Agriculture, Murray Watt, has identified biosecurity as one of his top three short-term priorities and, with Varroa mite setting up camp in NSW and Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) and Lumpy Skin Disease (LSD) right on Australia’s border, in Indonesia, this is of little surprise. No Minister for Agriculture would want a major bio-security outbreak blotting their CV.
Australia is no stranger to incursions of pests and diseases, with a good number welcomed to Australia’s exclusive biological party through ill-conceived ideas such as foxes (for hunting) and cane toads (cane beetle control). More recently, most breaches of our bio-border have come via inadvertent piggybacking on imported goods and transport and the natural cross-border migration of people, animals and plants. And this is, rightly, making Australian farmers nervous.
In 2020, fall army worm made its way into northern Australia by leapfrogging across the Indonesian archipelago and down the Torres Strait Island chain to Cape York. The Australian moat defence proved no barrier for the strong flying moth and it is now a fully-established Aussie, having been detected as far south as Victoria in the East and in the wheatbelt in the West. Outside of an anti-moth missile defence system, there was not much that Australia could have done.
But what about FMD and LSD (not the psychotropic drug but the cattle disease).
As most would be acutely aware, FMD is a highly contagious virus that affects all cloven-hoofed animals including cattle, sheep and pigs, and can be carried on live animals as well, as in meat, dairy products, soil, grass, vehicles and equipment. It can also be transported on people’s clothing and footwear and even be blown over distance by the wind. FMD has visited our shores before, but not in anyone’s living memory, as we have managed to stay FMD free since 1872.
ABARES is predicting the potential damage of a FMD outbreak on Australian livestock industries over a ten year period at $80 billion –which is more than the entire agricultural production output of Australia for 2021.
LSD is also a viral disease, impacting cattle and water buffalo but causing relatively low mortality. However, the disease can result in significant production losses from poor animal welfare outcomes, and is forecast to be particularly hard to manage should it become established across Australia’s vast rangelands. LSD is spread primarily by biting insects, such as certain species of flies, mosquitoes and possibly ticks (which are hardly in short supply in the bush), and can also be spread through such things as contaminated equipment.
So, it doesn’t take a genius to work out the risk that comes from one of the 1 million Australian tourists to Bali getting a selfie with a buffalo and carrying a skerrick of infected mud on a Birkenstock back to the South West of WA. Or a mosquito from Sumatra hitching a ride on a freighter as it picks up the next load of live cattle from Darwin.
Risk management can be likened to layers of Swiss cheese. Each slice of cheese is a risk mitigant and, for the risk to eventuate, the holes in the layers of cheese need to line up. The more layers of cheese (ie mitigants) the more unlikely it is for the risk to materialise. Minister Watt has committed to working on increasing the layers of cheese at the border level but all parts of the industry can do their part. Whether it’s freight providers, input suppliers, farm managers or real estate agents - anyone that visits a farming property or transits farming areas should be intent on making it as unlikely as possible for these viruses to gain a foothold in our industry.
How many slices of cheese have you got protecting your farm?
