David Burt
An effective and efficient biosecurity system is crucial to the sustainability of farming and other primary sector businesses.
The risks of a biosecurity incursion to New Zealand are increasingly significant as the volumes of mail, parcels, sea and air passengers and freight are expected to continue to steadily rise as they have over the last decade.
The biosecurity framework in New Zealand is undergoing a fundamental change and one of the cornerstones of the new system is the Government Industry Agreements for Biosecurity Readiness and Response (GIA).
GIA is a partnership-based approach to biosecurity that offers participating industries joint decision-making in biosecurity preparedness and incursion response activities and so achieves better biosecurity outcomes. In exchange for this increased involvement industry will need to pay a share of the costs.
New Zealand still has a robust biosecurity system but, as a number of high-profile border breaches over the past year and the recent detection of Mycoplasma bovis have shown, there is always room for improvement.
An important question is how can the farming sector contribute to a better system? A potential answer that farmers will be asked to consider is can this be done through the GIA process?
It is widely acknowledged that farmers are already on the front-line of biosecurity by virtue of working with animals and crops on-farm daily.
The sooner a pest or diseases can be detected the lower the costs of control and the greater the opportunities to eradicate - farmers play a key role in early detection and have also invested significant amounts of money off-farm in biosecurity in areas such as bovine tuberculosis and the NAIT system.
Historically the government, through the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI), has been the custodian of the border, and primary funder of biosecurity incursion responses. Just as importantly, while consulting stakeholders, including farmers in many instances, MPI has also been the sole arbiter about what preparedness work is undertaken and what and how incursions are responded to - or not.
In late 2011, Federated Farmers was part of an initiative in which government and industry agreed in principle to working in partnership under a Government Industry Agreement framework to achieve better biosecurity outcomes.
A number of sectors have already joined the GIA - it's called becoming GIA Signatories and they sign up to a GIA Deed that outlines the principles and processes of working in partnership under the GIA. After a sector joins the GIA the next steep is to develop Operational Agreements for specific pests or diseases.
In addition to MPI, industry organisations, primarily from the horticultural sector but including forest owners and Pork NZ, have joined GIA and three operational agreements have been signed, including for the management of fruit fly and Psa.
The inclusion of farming would significantly expand the scope and value of GIA and both the livestock sector organisations and the arable sector organisations have been actively engaged with MPI about the benefits and implications of joining GIA.
A key part of the GIA framework is that all organisations that seek to join must undertake a robust consultation process and must demonstrate to the government that they have the support of their members.
Livestock sector organisations (Federated Farmers, Dairy NZ, Beef+Lamb NZ, Deer Industry NZ, Dairy Companies Association of NZ and Meat Industry Association) have been meeting regularly to develop the framework under which they would operate and the relative proportions industry and government would commit to prepare for and respond to a biosecurity incursion such as foot and mouth disease.
Under GIA, both industry and government makes minimum commitments about what each party will contribute. Central government will pay for a minimum of 50 per cent of the readiness and response costs over and above these minimum commitments.
Farmers will be provided with the opportunity to say if they support their sectors joining GIA.