Practical tools to protect your business

Getting on the front foot with farm biosecurity is essential to protecting your livestock and business from the potential impact of disease.

Australia is currently free of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) and lumpy skin disease (LSD). However, with both diseases recently detected in Indonesia, producers need to pay extra attention to farm biosecurity and livestock traceability to minimise biosecurity threats to their business.

Read on to see three simple ways you can protect your livestock and livelihood today.

1. Update your Farm Biosecurity Plan

Producers accredited with the Livestock Production Assurance (LPA) program must have a documented Farm Biosecurity Plan.

This Farm Biosecurity Plan will help you implement procedures on-farm to protect against disease spread. This Plan must be updated annually under LPA requirements.

Follow this guide to learn how to update your Farm Biosecurity Plan or download the LPA Farm Biosecurity Plan template to create a new plan. More information on Farm Biosecurity Plans is available on the Integrity Systems Company (ISC) website.

2. Log in and check on your NLIS account

Ensuring all livestock have lifetime traceability through the National Livestock Identification System (NLIS) is key to maximising biosecurity within the industry.

Now’s the time to check you are meeting your NLIS requirements, including:

• Completing NLIS transfers
• Ensuring LPA National Vendor Declarations (NVDs) are clear, complete and correct

More information on your NLIS requirements is available on the ISC website, including a range of how-to guides for completing actions in the NLIS database.

3. Complete a PIC reconciliation

With livestock traceability an industry priority now more than ever, it’s a good time to complete a Property Identification Code (PIC) reconciliation to make sure your NLIS account is up to date.

A PIC reconciliation compares the tags you have on your property with what the NLIS database has recorded for your property. Any differences must be reconciled so the database accurately reflects what animals (devices) are on your property. Read more about PIC reconciliations here or access ISC’s NLIS how-to guides for conducting a PIC reconciliation (by file upload) or conducting a PIC reconciliation (by typing in details) for assistance with conducting a PIC reconciliation.

ISC is also hosting a webinar on 8 September to assist producers to conduct a PIC reconciliation. For more information or to register, visit the event page.