Agriculture
5 June, 2024
Farm plans get a makeover
A NEW animal disease response plan aims to strengthen biosecurity practices and preparedness to quickly and effectively respond to emerging animal diseases. The State Government has updated its 2022 state ermergency animal disease response plan...
A NEW animal disease response plan aims to strengthen biosecurity practices and preparedness to quickly and effectively respond to emerging animal diseases.
The State Government has updated its 2022 state ermergency animal disease response plan setting out how it will respond to any threats.
According to the Government, Australia faces heightened risk of biosecurity incursions due to detections of emerging animal diseases in neighbouring countries.
“The emergency animal diseases response plan will help to eradicate a disease outbreak in the shortest time possible while minimising the social, environmental, welfare and economic impacts on the Victorian community,” it says.
The updated plan builds on ongoing work to prepare for an emergency animal disease outbreak by setting out how the government and agencies will respond to an emergency and outlining the action required to protect the agriculture industry. The plan outlines mitigation, preparedness, response, relief and recovery arrangements for a large-scale emergency animal disease outbreak.
The updates include improving and streamlining emergency response structures and clarifying roles and responsibilities – to ensure a quick and strong response to any outbreaks. It also creates a more robust overview of relief and recovery – outlining agency responsibilities across government and ensuring all agencies have clear emergency responsibilities that can be activated quickly and seamlessly when required.
The Government says its plan builds on the work to train staff with more than 750 people completing training required to be deployed in an animal disease emergency.
The plan comes as the Victorian Farmers; Federation works with the Government after the detection of Avian Influenza at an egg farm in the Western District last week.