After a run of nationally significant biosecurity breaches, including Queensland's fire ant advance and the arrival of the bee killing varroa mite, CSIRO is to spearhead a major offensive to enhance Australian biosecurity defences.
In partnership with the federal government, farm industry partners and remote Indigenous patrol teams, the initiative aims to significantly bolster Australia's capacity against biosecurity threats.
The collaboration will beef up detection and surveillance activities using new-era technology to develop diagnostic platforms which speed up incursion detection and decision making models.
The Catalysing Australia's Biosecurity (CAB) program expects to involve an initial co-investment of more than $55 million over six years.
This will complement a $1 billion four-year biosecurity funding plan committed by Canberra last year as part of the federal government's Biosecurity Sustainable Funding Package.
"Our biosecurity in Australia may be world leading, but it is becoming an complex task because of our increasing exposure to international trade and tourism, changing land use patterns and changing climate," said the Department of Agriculture Forestry and Fisheries Bronwen Jaggers.
Addressing this year's Canberra agricultural Outlook 2024 conference she noted the $90 billion industry had encountered a big rise in biosecurity incursions ranging from fire ants and varroa mites to last year's fall armyworm invasion, Japanese encephalitis virus in pigs and beef industry scares relating to lumpy skin disease and foot and mouth disease in nearby Indonesia.
The first assistant secretary of biosecurity strategy and reform said a foot and mouth disease outbreak would cost Australia $80 billion over 10 years.
CSIRO chief scientist and co-director of the CAB project, Dr Andy Sheppard, said the national research institution and DAFF were seeking as much industry collaboration as possible from relevant stakeholders to rapidly ramp up the biosecurity fight.
"To be successful by 2030 we need to reduce the incidence of emerging threats to our biosecurity," he said.
The CAB initiative is promising to better co-ordinate biosecurity defences as well as aligning biosecurity research development and extension outcomes as part of the National Biosecurity Strategy.
Projects on the drawing board or being activated by the CAB included developing a biosecurity research database and establishing a biosecurity hub involving government and private industry investors to provide ideas and inventions to tackle pest and disease threats and outbreaks.
One project on the ground focuses on detecting varroa mite on honeybees as they enter their hives.
Two other pilot programs targeting varroa mite, and co-funded to the tune of $130,000 will begin within months.
A pilot involving the University of Canberra will use a citizen science approach to trial Vimana Tech's BeeRight technology and use environmental DNA (eDNA) with backyard beekeepers, while the other, in NSW, will use BeeRight technology and eDNA on known hives infected with varroa mite.
CSIRO chief executive, Dr Doug Hilton, described the CAB initiative as critical to safeguard the nation.
"Biosecurity is on the frontline of keeping Australia and Australians safe - it means protecting Australia's unique biodiversity, ensuring our food security and minimising the risk of the transmission of infectious diseases," he said.
"Our biosecurity defences, processes and protections have to be robust, they have to be world class and they must be science-based."
DAFF secretary Adam Fennessy told the ABARES outlook conference he believed the CAB initiative would help to transform research and innovation in the biosecurity system.
Andrew Marshall
Andrew Marshall is the group agribusiness writer for ACM's state agricultural weeklies and websites. He is a former editor at The Land and has worked in various Rural Press group roles in Canberra, North Richmond (NSW) and Toowoomba (Qld).
Andrew Marshall is the group agribusiness writer for ACM's state agricultural weeklies and websites. He is a former editor at The Land and has worked in various Rural Press group roles in Canberra, North Richmond (NSW) and Toowoomba (Qld).
