The webinar heard a description of the disease threat and advice on farm biosecurity plans from Victoria’s chief veterinary officer Graeme Cooke.
Participants asked more than 50 questions of Dr Cooke and fellow Agriculture Victoria veterinary officer Jeff Cave.
The federal and state governments have increased border security and implemented precautionary plans following the outbreak of FMD in Indonesia. The disease is now established in 22 provinces, including Bali.
Australia is free from the disease and any outbreak here would have an estimated $80 billion impact on agriculture.
While the presentation gave broader descriptions of the nature of the disease threat and described the importance of on-farm biosecurity protocols, many of the questions from farmers were around practical details.
Farmers wanted to know what would happen if a disease was found on a farm property or a neighbour’s place, whether apparently healthy animals would be slaughtered, what compensation would be available and how to handle foot baths for stock.
Farmers also wanted to know why vaccinations weren’t being offered.
Dr Cooke told the seminar there were at least seven different types of FMD and vaccinations had to be type specific.
He also said if Australia started a vaccination campaign, the country would be treated by its trading partners as having the disease and trade would immediately be affected.
He described the disease as extremely infectious and unfortunately one that would thrive in Victoria’s climatic conditions.
Although it didn’t have a high mortality rate animals suffered poor health, which affected their performance, he said.
Dr Cave told the webinar that farm biosecurity plans should be practical, feasible, sustainable and a type that suits the property.
Although there were a variety of potential risks, he advised farmers to concentrate on the risks that mattered most.
The biggest risk was usually the introduction of infected live animals onto a property.
So he outlined a series of measures including inspection of animals arriving on the property (including transfers from out-blocks), foot baths for the stock and quarantining new stock arrivals from the rest of the herd or flock.
The Victorian Government's emergency animal disease task force will focus on bolstering Agriculture Victoria's workforce to help manage the potential social, economic and environmental threats posed by FMD.
More than 300 Agriculture Victoria staff are undertaking FMD-specific training, scenario planning and emergency exercises.
A farm biosecurity webinar will be held this Thursday, August 11 from 1pm to 3.30pm.
The session will guide farmers through the Animal Health Australia and Livestock Production Assurance program template with a panel of beef, sheep, dairy and goat specialists to answer questions.
Register via https://agriculture.vic.gov.au/support-and-resources/event-listing/biosecurity-planning-webinar-for-livestock-producers
For more information, contact Morgan Cassell at Agriculture Victoria on 0427 681 714 or morgan.cassell@agriculture.vic.gov.au
Keep up to date with free updates about foot and mouth disease on the Country News website at: www.countrynews.com.au
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