As producers get their heads around the slowly emerging detail of the on-farm biosecurity plans, the worms are wriggling free of the can.
Among the issues: How a mixed farm’s ovine Johne’s situation might effect a Johne’s beef assurance score; the fact a biosecurity plan is a required part of a Livestock Production Assurance (LPA) plan; the path saleyards might take to deal with the varied health status of stock, and can a self-assessed system for herd health give buyers confidence?
The Land understands that a farm’s Johne’s beef assurance score (JBAS) could be affected if the same farm’s ovine Johnes status was not ship shape. While sheep have their own scoring and management systems, the JBAS score for cattle is sensitive to sheep because some cattle have, in the past, been detected as carrying the sheep Johne’s strain.
Meanwhile, depending on where farmers have got their information, they might also be thinking the biosecurity plan is voluntary. What they need to be aware of, is it makes up one of two new parts of the LPA, along with a welfare plan. These could be audited as part of the LPA audit – depending of course on the extent of funds Meat and Livestock Australia will have available to pay third party auditors.
Also, will certain types of stock likely require higher herd health status to retain competition, such as restocker females, or heifers at weaner sales, as an example. Likewise, agents and saleyard operators might have to work out a plan with stakeholders on how a selling centre might disclose any given vendor’s herd health status.
Other situations farmers need to be across include sharing yards with a neighbour, truck hygiene when transporting stock, or even what steps might need to be taken if an unknown animal gets into the herd.
The Land’s Facebook page has fielded questions such as how would JBAS scores be policed, given any herds requiring a Johne’s beef assurance score of less than 7 would be self scored.
Overall the biosecurity plans are effectively formalising many of the steps farmers already take and this is focusing more producers on biosecurity. However, Animal Health Australia and Cattle Council of Australia are still nowhere to be seen when it comes to answering much of this detail. If it weren’t for word of mouth, producers may still be unaware.