- Nationally 127 staff were required to trace the location of 60 randomly selected sheep and goats
- NSW – 60 staff, 20 animals
- Qld – 13 staff, 3 animals
- SA – 12 staff, 9 animals
- Tas – 6 staff, 2 animals
- Vic – 22 staff, 14 animals
- WA – 13 staff, 11 animals
SYSTEMIC failures with Australia’s sheep and goat industries’ mob-based tracing system have been revealed in a damning report by Animal Health Australia (AHA).
The report, Exercise Sheepcatcher II, has been leaked to Fairfax Media amid concerns of inadequate tracing of smallstock during an endemic disease outbreak.
It revealed a National Livestock Identification System tracing trial of sheep and goats (NLIS SG), which ran from 2 June to 5 July last year, failed to meet the National Livestock Traceability Performance Standards (NLTP).
In total, 60 sheep and goats were traced using the NLIS database to properties, saleyards and abattoirs across the country, requiring 127 staff to attempt to verify the movements within 24 hours.
The NLTP standard requires back-tracing during a disease outbreak such as foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), to determine where an infected animal had come from, and forward tracing to determine the spread of disease.
All tracing must cover the last 30 days and be completed within 24 hours in line with the epidemiology of FMD.
The Sheepcatcher II was only able to verify 77 per cent of back-traced stock and 40pc of subsequent movements. After 14 days, the whole of life locations of nine stock remained unverified.
The major factors preventing quick tracking of stock were the completeness and accuracy of National Vendor Declaration (NVD) uploaded to the NLIS database, and the availability of staff resources to extract this information.
A random selection of 754 sheep NVDs supplied to AHA revealed widespread issues with NVDs, with 29pc incorrectly completed.
During a presentation at the Australian Poll Dorset Association national conference in Adelaide, Sheepmeat Council of Australia (SCA) vice president Allan Piggott told members the Sheepcatcher II showed “serious shortfalls” in the nation’s ability to track sheep to properties.
In reaction to their failure to trace 14 animals with 22 staff in the excercise, the Victorian Government implemented mandatory electronic identification of sheep and goats this year.
Despite the findings, Mr Piggott said SCA supported the current mob-based paper system.
“We are going to have a very close look at our NVD system,” he said.
“If you hear of anyone, agents in particular, make sure they stay on top of NVD because we need to demonstrate our traceability is on top of the game.
“If we run another Sheepcatcher in a few years’ time and it hasn’t improved and the Victorian system is working, there will be no reason not to go down the compulsory EID path as much as we hate so.”
Mr Piggott applauded the Victorian Government’s $17.5 million investment in the EID transition, calling it a “very big trial” to see if the process works.
“Time will tell,” he said.
“We’re not against it, but it is a cost and we’re not sure we have the technology available just yet to implement it.
“We’re going to support the Victorians as much as we can to try and make it work.”
As a consequence of the Sheepcatcher II exercise, 18 recommendations have been made to develop the current system which include a national Property Identification Code database, mandatory uploading of movement information to the mob-based movement database and improvements to the NVD system.