Read the latest information on
Foot-and-mouth disease
The latest casualties in the war on weeds at Peter Mifsud’s property north of Clermont, in Central Queensland, are the contractors who once helped to harvest the crops on his 3900-hectare property. “About two years ago we decided to stop using contract harvesters; the risk is just not worth it,” says Peter, who has strict […]
Australia’s honey bees are some of the healthiest in the world, free from many pests and diseases found elsewhere. To help keep it that way, the manual that provides biosecurity advice to beekeepers has been updated and is now available. Over recent years the number of people taking up beekeeping has increased markedly in both […]
You couldn’t operate a farm without agricultural knowledge or build a fence without the right tools, so how could you implement biosecurity practices on your property without a basic understanding of what it involves? Fortunately, help is just a click away, with the Farm Biosecurity website providing farmers and industry stakeholders with access to a […]
A state-wide livestock standstill is currently in place for spat (juvenile) oysters in Tasmania following an outbreak of Pacific Oyster Mortality Syndrome (POMS) in Pitt Water, Tasmania. On 28 January 2016, a grower reported increasing mortality rates in oysters at one of his leases to Biosecurity Tasmania. The POMS virus was confirmed by laboratory tests […]
Whenever crops are sprayed to control pests or weeds there’s a risk that the spray may affect crops other than the target. It’s recently been estimated that 20 per cent of the cotton crop in NSW and Queensland last year suffered from sprays intended for other crops. The reason why so much off-target damage occurred […]
The Australian Department of Agriculture and Water Resources is asking people to be aware of the possibility of a new type of stink bug arriving in Australia via travellers and freight. Brown marmorated stink bugs (BMSB; Halyomorpha halys) originate from Asia but in recent decades they have spread to North America and Europe. They are […]
Two new documents have been published to help livestock producers survive an emergency disease outbreak. The first document, Preparing your business to survive: Risk management planning for an emergency animal disease outbreak, is designed to assist livestock enterprises prepare a risk management plan for emergency animal disease (EAD) outbreaks. This manual can help you by: […]
