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Animal Health Australia - Exercise SheepCatcher II
Animal Health Australia - Exercise SheepCatcher II
Animal Health Australia - Exercise SheepCatcher II
CONTENTS 2
GLOSSARY 4
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 6
RECOMMENDATIONS 8
INTRODUCTION 11
EXERCISE OBJECTIVE 13
EXERCISE CONDUCT 14
Scope 14
Constraints 15
Assumptions 15
Date/time/venue 15
Participants 16
Confidentiality 16
Exercise tracing request 17
Tag information 17
Verification 18
Evaluation 18
Related projects 18
METHODOLOGY 20
Animal selection 20
Distribution 21
Exercise control 21
Tracing 21
Exercise Review 22
Participant Debrief & Review 22
OVERVIEW OF RESULTS 24
AGSoC Benchmarks 24
Standard 1.1 24
Standard 1.2 25
Standard 3.1 26
Standard 3.2 26
Exercise Review 27
transaction tagging v non-transaction tagging 28
NVD completion rates 29
CONCLUSION 31
APPENDIX A: NATIONAL LIVESTOCK TRACEABILITY
PERFORMANCE STANDARDS 33
APPENDIX B: POST-EXERCISE QUESTIONNAIRE 34
Between 2 June and 5 July 2016, a national exercise was held to audit the National
Livestock Identification System for Sheep and Goats (NLIS-S&G) against the Primary
Industries Ministerial Committee (PIMC) endorsed National Livestock Traceability
Performance Standards (NLTPS). This exercise was named Sheepcatcher II. It must
be noted that the Exercise is not a statistically valid study and was never designed to
be so. It has been designed to identify trends within the system being audited. PISC
(2004) agreed that a national sampling framework would be determined. The
outcome would be to ensure that a nationally consistent result is achieved. It would
also address the commercial reality that livestock move across jurisdictional
boundaries.
Sheepcatcher II (SC2) aimed to evaluate the tracing system of sheep and goats to
identify areas where the system could be improved. SC2 involved agriculture
agencies in all jurisdictions (except the Northern Territory) tracing individual
(specified) animals independently chosen from saleyards, abattoirs, pre-export
quarantine facilities and private properties back to property of birth and the
identification of their cohorts and their location. A total of 60 animals were selected
and divided amongst the jurisdictions based on the population of sheep in each
state/territory as a proportion of the total.
Participants reported the results of the traces to Exercise Control, and provided
qualitative information on how they did the tracing, the impediments, how to
improve tracing, etc. through a post-exercise questionnaire and debrief conducted at
a face-to-face meeting on the 14 September 2016.
A review of the outcomes of SC2 confirms that the described objectives have been
met:
evaluating the NLIS-S&G tracing system against the NLTPS and the 2014
AgSOC key performance indicators (KPIs)
identifying areas where the NLIS-S&G program can be further improved
in order to better meet regulatory expectations
assessing the variations in ability of mandatory transaction tagging to
assist in rapid tracing as opposed to voluntary transaction tagging
where a resultant hybridised system operates
Importantly the exercise has identified areas where the NLIS-S&G program needs to
be improved. It must be remembered that the expectation of the exercise was to
demonstrate current compliance against the NLTPS, and to set a benchmark allowing
the impact of improvements to the system to be measured in the future. This is the
second time such an exercise has been executed for traceability in sheep and goats.
An improvement in performance from Exercise Sheepcatcher I (SC1) has been shown
in Standards 1.1, 3.1 and 3.2.
SC2 results indicate that where movements have not been recorded on the NLIS
Database the resource demands associated with locating and interpreting the
paperwork on which the NLIS-S&G relies to facilitate the tracking of sheep can be
considerable. This has implications for governments and industry in a disease or
food safety response scenario where potentially thousands of sheep may need to be
located quickly and efficiently. Better compliance with uploading to the NLIS
database and mandatory reporting of all movements would provide greater
reliability of trace data and reduce the reliance on a paper-based system to verify
what is on the database. Additionally, uploading the NVD for each movement
currently voluntary - would reduce the time to access any documents that do need
to be viewed.
All participants (industry and governments) had the opportunity to provide feedback
on the exercise. The jurisdictions had the opportunity to provide written feedback to
Exercise Control and verbal feedback was provided during a face-to-face meeting on
the 14 September 2016. In addition, Exercise Control met with the Project Steering
Committee (Industry funding parties, a non-affected industry (pig industry) and a
state government representative) to review the data and provide recommendations
from their viewpoint. The following recommendations are those provided by the
Project Steering Committee and jurisdictional participants and have been presented
and categorised to reflect the objectives of the tracing task:
Strategic direction
1. The NLIS-S&G needs to be regularly evaluated (no more than 5 years apart).
Exercises should be undertaken to identify deficiencies and measure
performance in NLIS-S&G.
2. There is an urgent need to address the recommendations from the 2014
Decision Regulatory Impact Study (DRIS).
3. There is a need for a set of standards to replace the existing business rules.
The responsibilities of the various components of the supply chain (e.g.
producer, saleyard operator, agent, etc.) need to be clarified and agreed to
by all relevant industry participants.
4. The need for incorporating the YES/MAX, BioBiz and visual tracing systems
into everyday use will provide a useful framework for training and
maintaining critical competency levels within the jurisdictions in preparation
for a biosecurity, food safety or product integrity response.
5. Strategies are required to reduce the personnel (government and industry)
needed to trace sheep and goats in a response. At present, many people are
required to trace and verify the data of sheep and goats due to the
incomplete records of movement on the NLIS database and the non-
compulsory requirement to upload information to the NLIS Database in some
jurisdictions.
6. Strategies to improve data capture accuracy associated with the visual
reading and recording of information on tags and NVDs within the supply
chain.
The concept of a national identification system was first applied to cattle through the
Brucellosis and Tuberculosis Eradication Campaign (BTEC).
BTEC required a high level of cattle control with 100% musters and recording
of all cattle moving between farms and from farm to abattoir. A major
development of BTEC, starting in NSW in 1969, was the introduction of a self-
adhesive plastic or vinyl tag applied to the tail showing details of the animals
ownership and property or premise of origin. All cattle are identified by a tail
tag before sale or ante-mortem inspection at abattoirs and identification and
trace-back of slaughter cattle remains integral to successful surveillance for
tuberculosis. (Cousins et al (editors), Eradication of Bovine Tuberculosis from
Australia, CSL, 1998).
In 1970, the Western Australian government introduced new legislation for the need
to identify all livestock with a brand.
and agreed that these traceability systems should be based upon existing
industry/government endorsed systems, for sheep, the National Flock Identification
System.
1
ABARES 2014, Implementation of improvements to the National Livestock Identification System for
sheep and goats: Decision Regulation Impact Statement ABARES research report, Canberra, August.
CC BY 3.0.
At the 10th Primary Industries Health Committee (PIHC) meeting of December 2005,
it was agreed that Animal Health Australia (AHA) would be requested to:
In 2011 the former PIMC noted that the NLIS for sheep and goats does not enable
tracing of animals to the standard required by the NLTPS. The former PIMC
established a working group to consider the feasibility of electronic identification
devices for sheep and goats. The PIMC Working Group on NLIS (Sheep & Goats)
reported that no insurmountable technical barriers existed to implementing an
electronic NLIS for sheep and goats but a substantial investment of resources and
funding would be needed from all jurisdictions.1
A Consultation Regulatory Impact Study (CRIS) (March 2013) was prepared to seek
stakeholder views on possible options for modifying the current National Livestock
Identification System (NLIS) for sheep and goats. The views assisted in the
preparation of a regulation impact statement (RIS) for the consideration of the
Standing Council on Primary Industries (SCoPI now known as AgSOC). The CRIS
formed the basis of the Decision RIS (DRIS) (September 2014) which outlines the
method and sources of data used to conduct the analysis; assesses the costs and
benefits of selected options for improving traceability; and recommends a preferred
option based on a set of standard assumptions. ABARES prepared the DRIS in
accordance with Office of Best Practice Regulation (OBPR) guidance.
In August 2015, the NLIS-S&G Advisory Committee agreed that a second tracing
exercise would be undertaken to provide guidance for enhancements of the mob-
based system.
As such, in 2016, AHA worked with all stakeholders in undertaking a tracing exercise
called SC2 where 60 sheep and goats were identified, allocated to participating
jurisdictions and traced to meet all relevant standards of the NLTPS. This report
provides a review of the planning, execution and results of the exercise and satisfies
one of the recommendations of the DRIS.
The aim of the exercise was to develop, conduct and evaluate an exercise to
objectively assess the tracing capabilities of Australias NLIS-S&G.
The objectives of the project were to:
evaluate the NLIS-S&G tracing system against the NLTPS and the 2014
AgSOC key performance indicators (KPIs)
identify areas where the NLIS-S&G program can be further improved in
order to better meet regulatory expectations
assess the variations in ability of mandatory transaction tagging to assist
in rapid tracing as opposed to voluntary transaction tagging where a
resultant hybridised system operates.
SCOPE
The scope of the project includes:
Government agricultural agencies in all jurisdictions (except the
Northern Territory)
the NLTPS approved by PIMC (see Appendix A) and KPIs defined by
AgSOC
a primary focus on the ability to locate individual animals and their in-
contact cohorts using the current identification/traceability systems for
sheep and goats with a secondary focus on timeliness
Two matters that sit outside of scope, but provides insight into aspects of the tracing
system are:
a review of NVDs and their completion rates
a review of the results broken down according to where the target
specified trace animals were identified.2
The exercise involved the identification and tracing of 60 specified sheep and goats
through the various production pathways from abattoirs, export depots, saleyards
and properties back to property of birth, as well as in-contact cohorts.
The NLIS-S&G Business Rules provide three separate options for non-vendor bred
stock:
The use of Post Breeder/transaction tags for second and subsequent
movements of stock from one property to another. Western Australia
has mandated the use of transaction tags3. In every other
state/territory, the use of transaction tags is voluntary.
The listing of all property identification codes (PICs) present in a given
mob on the NVD, followed by the mandatory inclusion of these details
in the suite of data uploaded to the NLIS Database and in post-sale
buyer documentation. This is required in every state/territory.
The voluntary use of RFID.
It was agreed at the December 2015 meeting of the NLIS-S&G Advisory Committee
that the report would include a comparison between the mandatory transaction tag
2
This has been included at the request of GICA and has been placed in Appendix E due to the inability to draw conclusions from
the comparisons.
3
Transaction tagging is the application of a pink post-breeder ear tag whenever an animal is consigned from a property that is not
their property of birth. Animals have one year-of-birth tag and a pink tag for each time they are sold. All tags must remain with
the animal through its life
CONSTRAINTS
The jurisdictions participating in the exercise used existing jurisdictional staff to
undertake the tracing of the nominated livestock. It must be noted, that in many
cases these staff still had to perform their normal duties while participating in the
exercise. Tracing staff had to operate within constraints imposed by:
Floods
Khapra beetle response
Japanese BJD response
anthrax response
data management issues
health emergencies
funerals, divorces and people not on farm(interstate & overseas)
removal of a PIC database
Part time employees both government & industry
Russian wheat aphid response
ASSUMPTIONS
The following assumptions were made:
all jurisdictions except the Northern Territory would be involved in the
exercise
that all costs incurred by the individual organisations involved with the
tracing exercises would be met by that organisation
that jurisdictions would work together to ensure the effective tracing of
animals that are transferred between jurisdictions
DATE/TIME/VENUE
The exercise commenced at 9:00am Eastern Standard Time (EST) on Thursday 2 June
2016 and finished at 12:00 noon EST on Tuesday 5 July 2016. Exercise participants were
at their normal places of work, with Exercise Control located in Canberra.
Each jurisdiction participated with differing levels of resources applied to the task. Some
jurisdictions set up control centres with 10 to 15 officers for part of the exercise whilst
other jurisdictions utilised smaller numbers of officers commensurate with the number
of trace animals allocated. Table 1 shows the number of tracing staff utilised (to varying
extent) compared to the number of animals requiring tracing, and the ratio of staff to
animals. On average, there were two staff for each animal, with NSW and Qld providing
additional staff compared to other states. The remaining jurisdictions provided similar
ratios of staff to animals.
CONFIDENTIALITY
Agricultural media raised awareness of the exercise prior to the event. Media talking
points were prepared by AHA, shared with the jurisdiction primary industry agencies,
SAFEMEAT and relevant industry sectors and held in case of unanticipated media
coverage.
The talking points were also distributed to industry bodies who were to brief their
members via industry related newsletters/emails.
TAG INFORMATION
All participants agreed that the sheep and goats be traced against standards 1.1, 1.2, 3.1
and 3.2 of the NLTPS (Appendix A).
For this exercise, the 60 sheep and goats were allocated to states based on the average
population of sheep in the jurisdiction for the previous three years. Data was obtained
from Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA), 2015, Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS),
2011-12 Survey, Combination of ABS, 2011-12 Survey and MLA, 2015, as set out in
Table 2.
4
Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA), 2015
5
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), 2011-12 Survey
6
Combination of ABS, 2011-12 Survey and MLA, 2015 (Based on carcase weight)
where there is no correlation between the movement document and the PIC on
the animals ear tag. For example, a breakdown in verification occurs when an
NVD for non-vendor bred animals has not been completed correctly and the PIC
on the ear tag is not listed on the NVD in the table describing the sheep or goats.
Verification of whether PICs were present on the movement document that did not
relate to tags on stock in the consignment could not be ascertained.
EVALUATION
To verify the success or otherwise of the livestock tracing:
The criterion for success were Standards 1.1, 1.2, 3.1 and 3.2 of the NLTPS. In
the assessment against a Standard it only took one breakdown in the traces
to render the trace incomplete and therefore not able to meet the Standard.
It must be noted that this form of evaluation does not and cannot give an
indication of the degree of trace achieved before that breakdown occurred as
it is impossible to know how many additional animals were to be traced.
Exercise Control required documentary evidence to be supplied for the
movements of each target animal and cohort(s).
Participants provided qualitative information through a post-exercise
questionnaire on how they did the tracing, the impediments, and how to
improve tracing.
A face to face debrief was conducted at a meeting of the government
agencies on the 14 September 2016.
RELATED PROJECTS
Projects related to the exercise:
NLIS-S&G compliance monitoring under the auspices of the NLIS Monitoring
Committee.
Review of the NLIS-S&G as planned by the NLIS-S&G Advisory Committee.
The development of a Business Plan by all stakeholders for the further
advancement of the system. This was an outcome of the 2014 DRIS. The
ANIMAL SELECTION
The identification and collection of sheep and goats for tracing was undertaken during
the week beginning 30 May 2016. Staff from export abattoirs, saleyards, export depots
and private properties randomly selected the sheep from randomly selected sites within
the focus property and collected information as set out in Table 4. This entailed catching
the selected sheep or goat and recording the particulars using photography (n=56/60) or
writing of the pertinent information (n=4/60). The information was then provided to
Exercise Control electronically. Exercise Control had no input into the selection of the
animals.
Location: Date:
Location: Date:
Exercise Control placed the electronic information received into an electronic format
(Table 4) for distribution to the states.
All tags for a designated jurisdiction were selected from facilities within the boundaries
of that jurisdiction (e.g. all tags allocated to Primary Industries and Regions, South
Australia {PIRSA} were collected within South Australian facilities).
All jurisdictions received a list of tags to trace between 8.50am and 9.05am on 2 June
2016. This information was provided via email to each jurisdictional NLIS project co-
ordinator.
EXERCISE CONTROL
Exercise Control was located at the AHA offices in Canberra. Exercise Control activities
included receiving reports from state and territory government personnel, solving
problems and answering operational questions as they arose during the conduct of the
exercise.
Exercise Control was operational between 8.00am and 7.00pm on each day of the
exercise. In order to cater for the western jurisdictions, contact details were provided for
after hours queries.
At the 24 hour, 14 day and 21 day points, reports were forwarded to Exercise Control,
providing the data collected against each of the trace animals.
TRACING
All participating jurisdictions engaged in the exercise as if it were a disease outbreak.
Each jurisdiction aimed to ensure an appropriate number of staff were utilised in the
exercise. Staffing was usually proportionate to the workload placed on the jurisdiction
(staffing varied between 1 and 60 officers).
A scenario was not utilised for this exercise so effectively there were 60 target animals
requiring tracing at any one time. This is equivalent to day 30 of an outbreak as reported
by Martin et al (2015)7.
7
Martin P.A.J., Langstaff I., Iglesias R.M., East I. J., Sergeant E.S.G., Garner M.G. Assessing the efficacy of general
surveillance for detection of incursions of livestock diseases in Australia. PREVET (2015),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.prevetmed.2015.06.017
EXERCISE REVIEW
The Steering Committee met on 20 October 2016 in Canberra to review the results
provided by the participants and assessed by AHA. Attendees represented AHA,
Australian Pork Limited (APL), NLIS Monitoring Committee representative (South
Australian Government), Goat Industry Council of Australia (GICA), Sheepmeat Council of
Australia (SCA) and WoolProducers Australia (WPA). After reviewing the data provided,
the attendees discussed:
the exercise planning phase
the operational aspects of the exercise
the presentation of the results
recommendations arising from the exercise
the implications of what was learnt during the exercise from the
representative organisations perspectives.
Due to the complexity of the exercise, the raw data or aggregated state results will not
be presented in this report. The raw data contains information pertaining to individual
businesses and, for privacy reasons, cannot be publicly released. The jurisdictions (who
legally own the data under Privacy Legislation) have also agreed via the Animal Health
Committee (AHC) (November 2016) that the aggregated final results for each state are
not to be released. The results that have been released cover the evaluation of the
NLTPS and the comparison between the mandatory or voluntary use of transaction tags.
Western Australia authorised the release of these results at the July 2016 meeting of the
NLIS-S&G Advisory Committee.
AGSOC BENCHMARKS
AgSOC established two benchmarks for the performance of the NLIS-S&G; short-term
traceability and long-term traceability, which were drawn from the DRIS and based on
the NLTPS. The two benchmarks are defined below:
Short-term traceability (Standards 1.1 and 1.2) the ability to determine, within
24 hours, the locations where a specified animal was resident during the previous
30 days and to determine the locations of all susceptible animals that resided
concurrently and/or subsequently on any of the properties on which a specified
animal has resided in the past 30 days. AgSOC agreed to this being 98%.
Long-term traceability (Standards 3.1 and 3.2) the ability to determine, within
14 days, all locations where a specified animal has been resident during its life,
and to determine, within 21 days, the location of all susceptible animals that
have come into contact with the specified animal at any time during the specified
animals life. AgSOC agreed to this being 95%.
STANDARD 1.1
Within 24 hours of the relevant CVO being notified, it must be possible to determine the
location(s) where a specified animal was resident during the previous 30 days.
n = 60 animals
Sheepcatcher I Sheepcatcher II
Table 5 shows a marked improvement in the traceability of sheep and goats nationally
compared to that experienced for Sheepcatcher I. However, the results fall short of the
AgSOC benchmark of 98%. The main reasons for not meeting the standard are:
1. Incomplete NVDs.
2. The lack of on-farm storage of NVDs. The NVDs were not kept for the required
timeframes as stated in the NLIS-S&G Business Rules.
3. The lack of government resources for tracing against the 24 hour time
constraints.
4. The 24 hour reporting period was not adjusted for the exercise as it was for the
14 and 21 day points.
5. The difficulty of tracing cross-border stock movements.
STANDARD 1.2
Within 24 hours it must also be possible to determine the location(s) where all
susceptible animals that resided concurrently and/or subsequently on any of the
properties on which a specified animal has resided in the last 30 days.
n = 60 animals
TABLE 6: NATIONAL TARGET OUTCOMES MEASUREMENT - STANDARD 1.2
Sheepcatcher I Sheepcatcher II
Table 6 shows little improvement in the traceability of sheep and goats nationally
compared to the benchmark set in SC1. The results fall a long way short of the AgSOC
benchmark of 98%. The main reasons for not meeting the standard are:
1. Difficulty verifying slaughter of saleyard lines often split and killed over several
days.
2. Failure of saleyard post-sale documentation to reconcile with abattoir kill.
STANDARD 3.1
Within 14 days of the relevant CVO being notified, it must be possible to determine all
locations where a specified animal has been resident during its life.
n = 60 animals
TABLE 7: NATIONAL TARGET OUTCOMES MEASUREMENT - STANDARD 3.1
Sheepcatcher I Sheepcatcher II
STANDARD 3.2
Within 21 days of the relevant CVO being notified, it must also be possible to determine
the location of all susceptible animals that resided concurrently with a specified animal at
any time during the specified animals life.
n = 60 animals
Sheepcatcher I Sheepcatcher II
Table 8 shows limited improvement in the long term traceability of sheep and goats
nationally compared to SC1. The results fall a long way short of the AgSOC benchmark of
95%. The main reasons for not meeting the standard are:
1. Incomplete NVDs.
2. The lack of on-farm storage of NVDs. The NVDs were not kept for the required
timeframes as stated in the NLIS-S&G Business Rules. Due to the age of some of
the sheep, some movements were outside the legal requirements to retain.
3. The difficulty of tracing cross-border stock movements.
4. The lack of resources for tracing against the time constraints.
5. Reluctance of supply chain entities to provide archived NVDs in a timely manner
per requests.
6. The tracing of older stock that were born prior to the introduction of the NLIS
S&G in 2010.
7. Staff disengagement due to length of the exercise and the need to perform
normal duties.
EXERCISE REVIEW
The exercise undertook three levels of review in order to capture the comments and
thoughts of those people involved in the tracing of the target sheep and goats. The first
being the completion of a feedback sheet, the second involved a telephone debrief of
the state co-ordinators, whilst the third involved the steering committee reviewing the
exercise.
Exercise Control received 25 feedback sheets from personnel involved at all levels of the
exercise. The comments made were de-identified and distilled down to a list of points
(Appendix C) that could be easily reviewed. It must be noted that no cleansing of the
comments has taken place (only the removal of duplicates).
Each jurisdiction provided commentary on their evaluation of the tracing task any
impediments experienced, beneficial aspects and any improvements identified.
Additionally, they commented on the exercise and its planning/execution.
A copy of a Sheep NVD is provided at Appendix D for reference and further explanation
and context of the questions being reviewed.
When reviewing the percentage of questions incorrectly or not completed it becomes
apparent that the traceability of sheep and goats will struggle to meet the AgSOC
acceptable benchmarks of 95% for long term traces (Standards 3.1 and 3.2) and 98% for
short term traces (Standards 1.1 and1.2). This will be more pertinent for non-vendor
bred mobs not because the system tools are not available, but due to lack of care and
participation by industry participants.
A major national communication effort that focuses on the need to complete the NVD
for each movement is required, with clear messages as to why it is important. This
communication effort will need to be continued over an extended period, as this is a
systemic issue with the NLIS-S&G.
The move to eNVDs will greatly improve this problem due to the mandatory fields and
electronic completion, making them complete and legible.
A review of the outcomes of SC2 shows that it met the objectives of evaluating the
tracing system for sheep and goats in all participating jurisdictions whilst identifying
areas where the NLIS-S&G program could be further improved. The objective of the
exercise was to assess the current traceability of sheep and goats against the NLTPS and
the results of SC1 (2007), whilst highlighting areas for targeted enhancement of the
mob-based traceability system operating in Australia, as per the directive stated in the
2014 DRIS. The results of SC2 will provide the comparison for measurement of the level
of enhancement achieved by 2019.
SC2 has also met the objective of comparing the various existing systems of mandatory
and voluntary transaction tagging.
The exercise provided a valuable insight into the suite of tools that are used in the
tracing of sheep and goats in Australia:
Movement documents e.g. National Vendor Declarations and post-sale
documentation
The NLIS database
A critical mass of competent staff with specialist technical skills and a
comprehensive knowledge of the industries and the regions they operate
within
These tools are essential for the efficient, ongoing and improved operation of the NLIS-
S&G. If any one of these tools declines in effectiveness, the ability to trace sheep and
goats will also be compromised. It will not matter what system is used if the skilled
resources are not available.
SC2 clearly shows that as a tracing system, NLIS-S&G provides a good working
framework for the back tracing of animals to their property of birth. The back tracing of
stock could be improved further with some minor amendments to the system. However,
as it stands, it requires greater commitment and participation from all stakeholders
industry and government - to support more prompt, efficient and accurate forward
tracing of cohorts. Significant system enhancements still need to be made in order to
achieve a robust system that will meet the AgSOC benchmarks stated in their
assessment of the 2014 DRIS and the NLTPS.
Given the resources needed to track the 60 animals involved in the exercise, and the
difficulties associated with promptly and efficiently locating cohorts, consideration must
be given to securing the skills and resources to interrogate the NLIS-S&G in its current
form is unlikely to provide optimum support for an effective response in a real whole of
life infectious disease outbreak.
8 For the purposes of the Standards, FMD Susceptible Species means cattle, sheep, goats,
and domesticated buffalo, deer, pigs, camels and camelids.
9 The relevant CVO means the State or Territory Chief Veterinary Officer, or their delegate, in
the jurisdiction where the specified animal is located or has been traced to.
10 For the purposes of these Standards, the term notified means the relevant CVO is aware of
an incident that required tracing.
11 Location means any definable parcel of land including (but not limited to): any parcel of land
with a Property Identification Code, travelling stock routes, saleyards, abattoirs, feedlots, live
export collection depots, show grounds, Crown land and transport staging depots.
12 Given the risks posed by BSE, it was considered appropriate to establish separate Standards
for cattle.
Name
Position
State/Territory agency
How would you improve the tracing system used by your state?
A number of common improvements were suggested as a result of the exercise. All of
the improvements, as expected, relate to operational issues/difficulties experienced
during the event. The suggestions provided are:
Automate the reporting so time can be spent on verifying and following up any
brick walls or errors.
The tracing system worked well so happy to leave as is. (x4)
One or two key staff doing all the interaction with particular points in the chain
e.g. saleyards, abattoirs.
Use centralised (electronic) system to keep a track of what traces have been
done, stage, completed, follow up needed etc. (e.g. MAX) (x5)
More staff to investigate and clarify disparities in information. (x3)
Increased training in tracing and more tools.
Clearer understanding on priority of traces from other jurisdictions.
All NVDs should be uploaded to NLIS database. It needs to be easier than it is (can
only upload I MB data, a photo of NVD is 2MB, not everyone knows how to resize
something so its got to be easier). This would overcome NVDs being
misplaced/lost etc. (x4)
Removal of pink tagging for transactions still need to list
Move to electronic tags (x4)
Education of producers to keep records and upload movements to the NLIS
database needs to be provided. (x6)
There is a need to improve the ability to contact those producers who do not
answer their phones or have an e-mail address.
Having a template of what to tell the producer, and what information we were
looking for exactly, e.g. a list of generic questions that we asked to get the
information most efficiently and not the extra un-related information.
Develop a suite of mirror database reports with a greater sophistication that may
assist more with WOL (whole of life) tracing. (x4)
In addition to looking at the results on a state-by-state basis against the Standards, the
national results were also analysed by point of origin (where the animals were identified)
to see if there were any trends identified. Table 9 reflects this analysis and shows that
those animals identified on-farm have consistently lower tracing rates than those
identified at saleyards, abattoirs or export yards. Table 9 also shows that the forward
tracing of stock at all points of origin is lower than those requiring back tracing. This is
consistent with that seen in the analysis for each Standard.
The reasons for the breakdown in tracing also remain consistent with those provided for
each Standard.