Member and Industry News One Biosecurity - the future starts now A new voluntary biosecurity program, designed to provide greater market credibility and welfare outcomes, less vulnerability to uncontrolled disease spread, better disease reporting and improved traceability will soon be launched in South Australia (SA). Designed by a Joint IndustryBiosecurity SA working group, the first release of the program, titled One Biosecurity is due to be launched mid-2018. It will target cattle and sheep industries to help SA producers better manage, protect and promote SA’s strong biosecurity regime across its livestock industry. Producers know that the best way to protect the biosecurity of a farm is by controlling what comes onto the farm, said Dr Roger Paskin, SA’s Chief Veterinary Officer. “One Biosecurity is designed on the concept that buying decisions are crucial, therefore buyers need to make a pre-purchase assessment of stock on sale based on information from the seller. With One Biosecurity, the seller makes a declaration about two key issues: the level of sophistication of biosecurity measures in place on-farm, and the health status of the animals for sale,” said Dr Paskin. Before the creation of the One Biosecurity system, Biosecurity SA conducted a number of studies to ensure the viability of the proposed system. An attitudinal survey showed that approximately two-thirds of producers were in Agents and prospective buyers could also use the portal to search for sellers of a specific class of animal with a specified biosecurity status. 38 THE LINK AUT/WIN 18 Dr Roger Paskin Chief Veterinary Officer, South Australia favour of the system. On-farm trials were then conducted across 19 farms in a number of different systems to ensure the concept was flexible enough across a wide range of situations. Feedback from the producers involved was that the system and its documentation is simple, understandable and easy to implement. Central to One Biosecurity is the ability for producers to register, manage, check and declare their farm biosecurity status online. “Once registered, producers create an online profile containing details of their farming enterprises and biosecurity practices and status. Producers can choose to make their profiles public for other registered users to view. It will also enable them to quickly generate a government and industry endorsed biosecurity plan for their property. This can be downloaded and used not only for One Biosecurity, but for other programs that require a farm biosecurity plan, in particular the LPA scheme,” said Dr Paskin. The system is designed to bring about a greater level of transparency in the livestock
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