New revamped Market Assurance Program for goat producers

A revamped Market Assurance Program for Goats (GoatMAP) has been released via Animal Health Australia, after a collaboration between Dr Richard Shephard from Herd Health Pty Ltd and a working group of industry and government representatives.

The new modules, accompanying documents and advice for veterinarians can be found on the Animal Health Australia website here.

The new program aims to assist goat producers in promoting their biosecurity and disease low risk status and proactively support them in the market assurance space. Whether you have been involved in the original GoatMAP for some time or are new to market assurance programs, your participation in the program is an important part of ongoing efforts to control important endemic diseases of goats in Australia.

Diseases like Johne’s disease (JD) and Caprine Arthritis Encephalitis (CAE) infection have a significant impact on production, with losses in both productivity and animal welfare. Thus, to better inform producers, the newly developed program is packaged in three separate modules – GOATBIO, CAEMAP and JDMAP, providing producers the essential tools and resources required to safeguard their animals and property.

GOATBIO describes the basic biosecurity requirements of entry into GoatMAP. As biosecurity is critical to any program like this one, the GOATBIO module has been set up as the baseline module for all participants to undertake.

Once GOATBIO requirements have been met, producers can subsequently seek disease-specific accreditation through meeting the requirements for Johne’s disease (JDMAP) and/or Caprine Arthritis Encephalitis (CAEMAP) modules depending on their herd priorities.

CAE has been identified as an industry priority and has been included in the new module CAEMAP. CAEMAP contains background on the condition and offers an organised industry approach to controlling CAE in Australia.

The third module, JDMAP, is the JD component of the previous GoatOP and is an essential one towards JD control.

The review of the manual not only identified that there was value in the continuation of the program, but in addition, there would be significant benefits in broadening the scope of the program by including other diseases besides JD, which has been its core focus for many years.

The revamp and development of the Market Assurance Program will help producers identify and promote their high assurance (low risk) herd status, minimise the spread of diseases, and at the same time support long term biosecurity practices.