V.RDA.2102 - Real-time, data-driven approach to assessing networked biosecurity risk

Summary

The red meat and livestock industry has a total turnover of $69.9 billion including $33.7 billion in production and directly employed almost 196,000 people in the year 2019–2020 (MLA, 2020). ExoFlare has employed a data-driven approach to biosecurity to support Australian agriculture in rapidly identifying and responding to biosecurity risks by providing access to real-time network risk assessment.

The purpose of this project was to contribute to developing a real-time data driven approach to assessing biosecurity risks in the red meat and pork sectors, and to build on previous work completed under Cross-sector Operational Biosecurity Risk Assessment (COBRA) platform. Exoflare received a grant from the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment to develop a real-time data driven approach to assessing biosecurity risks in the red meat and pork sectors. This project contributed funding to this broader project to cover the expert interviews to determine the barriers and opportunities for data sharing between government and industry to advise the COBRA data integration project plan.

Objectives

The project objectives for the subject matter expert interviews were:
1. Conduct red meat data custodian interviews with a minimum of 15 experts, document and summarise findings for provision to MLA
2. Presentation of results and workshop with MLA on data sharing priorities.

Key findings

• From the interviews, there was a general agreement on the importance of data sharing, and the potential that could be realised for industry if data that was collected on biosecurity risks were made available to the supply chain. However, barriers and risks from the sharing of data currently prevent this from occurring.
• There were four key data sharing risks raised in the interviews. These were:
o Data is difficult to find or collate due to fragmentation of data across organisations and divisions.
o The data sharing process is complicated, legally intensive, and time-consuming.
o If shared, data is often not current or too coarse to be useful due to aggregation and lengthy data access processes.
o Data sharing remains technically challenging, due to the prevalence of older systems that are not developed with data sharing front of mind.
• Enablers to improve data sharing were identified based on previous programs to improve government-industry data exchange. These include the following:
o simplify data sharing negotiation process
o move to online processes for permissioned data sharing sign-off
o use tools to manage the risk of re-identification
o standardise data collected for biosecurity management projects
o leverage existing data-sharing frameworks
o develop interoperability through APIs and long-term permissioned data access.

Benefits to industry

This project will help determine how Exoflare can use data from ISC, industry and government to build the COBRA platform that will enable industry to predict and respond to emerging risks.

MLA action

o MLA provided in-kind support to Exoflare over the course of the traceability grant and provided input into the red meat components of the grant.
o MLA provided support to the Visitor app with finding red meat producers and feedlots to trial the new biosecurity app.

Future research

The next phase of the COBRA project will involve researching risk communications and behaviour change to provide those best placed on the ground with the information they need to respond to potential risks. A pilot experiment will be conducted to demonstrate risk communication and measure behaviour changes through the ExoFlare platform.
Additionally recommended research opportunities included the following:
• Industry bodies should continue with projects to enable permissioned exchange of agricultural data such as the Australian AgriFood Data Exchange project, to enable management of biosecurity by the supply chain.
• Use existing solutions for data release risk management and permissioned data access to improve data sharing within federal government departments, and between federal and state governments.
• Pursue further research into connecting risk information through the supply chain to enable a real-time, data-driven approach to assess networked biosecurity risk for the red-meat industry.
• Establish standardised protocols for digital biosecurity traceability data to state and territory government biosecurity offices. Such information includes digital records of visitors to the site that can be used for trace forward and trace back during emergency animal disease (EAD) events.
• Establish an open-data platform to collate real-time aggregated biosecurity risk information derived from government and private data.