Sheep farmers are being encouraged to sign up to help speed up the response time in the event of an exotic disease outbreak in New Zealand.
OSPRI head of traceability Kevin Forward said sheep farmers can play their part in protecting the industry from exotic disease by registering with the new online portal MyOSPRI.
In any response to an outbreak, rapid access to accurate information about animal movements will be vital to contain it.
“In the unlikely event of an outbreak such as foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), it’s extremely important to keep the tracking and tracing of animals accurately recorded and up to date,” Forward said.
“Not only will sheep farmers benefit from using MyOSPRI, but we’ll have a better picture of all locations where cattle, deer and sheep move.”
More than 1000 sheep farmers have already ditched paper-based Animal Status Declarations (ASDs) and are now using MyOSPRI to send both farm-to-farm and farm-to-meat processor electronic ASDs. These eASDs provide accurate, reliable and readily accessible data about movements of sheep mobs and where animals have been or are located.
The MyOSPRI system will vastly improve the sector’s ability to launch an effective response in the event of a disease outbreak, Forward said.
“This is particularly critical for movements of mobs of sheep, which unlike cattle and deer are not covered by the National Animal Identification Tracing programme (NAIT).”
Forward said movements recorded using paper-based ASDs are not kept in a centralised database, and this fact would slow the ability to trace a rapidly moving disease such as FMD.
Paper ASDs will still need to be used for saleyards, however.
Beef + Lamb NZ chair and Southland sheep and beef farmer Andrew Morrison said while the risk of FMD arriving in NZ is still considered to be very low, everyone needs to play their part in helping to prevent its arrival and spread.
“I encourage sheep farmers to sign up to MyOSPRI and use electronic ASDs so the industry can move quickly in the unlikely event of a disease outbreak,” Morrison said.
“I have personally found using the electronic system is much easier and faster. It also gives me confidence that I am doing everything I can to protect my farm, my neighbour and the industry.”
