Insurance for your farm and your future

With around 700 accredited feedlots now across the country, sharing an annual production value of around $2.7 billion, this growing livestock industry knows just how important biosecurity is in maintaining Australia’s world-leading reputation for clean, safe, disease-free beef.

For 2010 Biosecurity Farmer of the Year finalist, Jim Cudmore of Kerwee Lot Feeders, of Jondaryan in south-east Queensland, biosecurity is part of their everyday thinking and is one form of insurance their business cannot ignore.

Beef production is big business in Australia. With around 700 accredited feedlots now across the country, sharing an annual production value of around $2.7 billion, this growing livestock industry knows just how important biosecurity is in maintaining Australia’s world-leading reputation for clean, safe, disease-free beef. For 2010 Biosecurity Farmer of the Year finalist, Kerwee Lot Feeders, of Jondaryan in South East Queensland, biosecurity is part of their everyday thinking and is one form of insurance their business cannot ignore.

The small, family-owned grain feeding facility is licensed to run around 9,171 standard cattle units and employs 11 full time people all year round. Specialising in the chilled, grain-fed, beef trade, Kerwee exports to around 37 countries including the United States, Japan, Korea, South East Asia, Indonesia, China, Russia and the Middle East.

Kerwee first introduced biosecurity practices to their quality assurance program around eight years ago in response to the organisation’s first expansion phase. Since then, the small business has developed a comprehensive biosecurity program to minimise the introduction of pests, weeds and disease, along with an emergency response plan designed to enable them to respond quickly and effectively in a potential biosecurity crisis.

The feedlot’s general manager, Jim Cudmore, says biosecurity is now firmly entrenched in the day-to-day management of the operation, focusing strongly on boundary security, visitor monitoring, livestock and commodity assessment and on-going training of employees, contractors and business associates.

As the feedlot is located next door to a popular Queensland tourist attraction, developing a thorough, yet manageable, process to assess the biosecurity risk of both drop-in tourists and business-related visitors was the first thing on the list.

“Because we are largely an export-focused business, we are also very vigilant about overseas customers and visitors that view our operation firsthand. We have actually knocked back important customer groups from visiting here because they haven’t passed the Visitor Biosecurity Risk Assessment,” he said.

“Recently we stopped a visit from an important delegation of Japanese customers coming here – a couple of them had come from the Miyazaki Prefecture in Japan where the foot and mouth outbreak was in April this year, so we decided to stop the whole group from visiting Kerwee. That might seem a bit extreme, but with a disease risk like foot and mouth, it is just sensible.”

Jim says they are extremely vigilant when monitoring for weeds, pests and disease and only purchase stock and feed with the relevant vendor declaration documentation. They also carryout sample analysis testing on feed brought on-site and conduct visual assessments of cattle on arrival and departure, as well as assessments for all machinery, vehicles and people entering the property