JOHNE’S disease was an intensely divisive issue when states maintained and actively prosecuted the Protection Zone policy but with the approaching deadline of June 30, new divisions are set to emerge within Queensland only this time they will be market driven.
Talk to a random selection of producers and agents in southern Queensland as I did earlier this week and the impression you will get is that JD is a forgotten issue.
The reason for that is because most states removed regulation on July 1, 2016 and moved to embrace a new approach to managing this endemic disease.
This new approach places producers in the driving seat and leaves it to them to determine what level of on-farm biosecurity they will take to manage the risks associated with this disease depending on what their market requirements are.
Gone are the days of state departments of agriculture quarantining properties as a control measure and since November last year gone also is the Australian Johne’s Disease Market Assurance Program for Cattle (CattleMAP).
In its place is what Animal Health Australia (AHA) refers to as an industry assurance system which features a revised National Cattle Health Declaration (formerly the Cattle Health Statement) and a voluntary risk profiling tool called J-BAS, the Johne’s Beef Assurance Score.
In Queensland, the shift from regulatory oversight to industry management included transitional arrangements for producers.
Properties which had no prior infection (most properties in Queensland) were allocated a J-BAS of 7. This recognised the low prevalence of JD in the state.
However, this transition period comes to an end on June 30.
From then on Queensland beef herd owners have the following options:
- Maintain J-BAS 7,
- Drop back to J-BAS 6,
- Step up to J-BAS 8 or
- Do nothing and lapse to J-BAS zero.
To maintain J-BAS 7, a herd owner has to apply a farm bio-security plan which has been developed and is implemented and reviewed annually by a veterinarian.
Also by 30 June 2018, a check test of 50 representative adult cattle from the herd must be carried out.
Dropping back to J-BAS 6 still requires a farm bio-security plan that addresses JD risks but the involvement of a veterinarian and check testing are not required.
Stepping up to J-BAS 8 is similar to J-BAS 7 only the sample test requires 210-300 adult cattle repeated two years apart.
And finally if herd owners choose to do nothing by June 30 (that is they fail to apply a farm bio-security plan that addresses JD risks) then their J-BAS automatically drops to zero.
The important thing here to understand is that a score of zero is equivalent to an infected and unmanaged herd.
But that in itself is not as bad as the words might sound.
Herd owners can still breed, buy in, sell through saleyards and send their cattle to meatworks.
Even if the herd becomes infected with JD, Biosecurity Queensland will not restrict livestock movement or quarantine the property. The herd owner will simply be required to take practical and reasonable steps to contain the infection on property and reduce the risk of further spread.
Judging by the response I got in contacting producers and agents this week, it would seem a fairly safe bet that the ‘do-nothing’ option will overwhelmingly prevail in Southern Queensland at least.
But the buy-sell freedom of J-BAS zero does have a seriously important limitation if interstate movements are implicated.
In the case of Queensland this specifically relates to live export cattle trucked into the Northern Territory for shipment out of Darwin.
NT Government requirement for cattle entering NT from July 1, 2017 is a J-BAS 6 or higher.
Therefore any Queensland producer who wants to retain access to the live trade through Darwin will need to have adopted a bio-security plan by June 30.
This will have higher relevance in the north and north-west of the state but as has been seen in the past, cattle have been trucked to Darwin from many parts of Queensland ranging right down to the far south-west and border regions.
Realisation of the importance of this issue has stepped up with the deadline now little more than a month away and north Queensland agents are making sure their clients are aware.
What may eventuate is a relatively high adoption rate of bio-security plans in the north to maintain J-BAS 6 or better and a relatively low adoption rate in central and southern parts of the state resulting predominately in J-BAS zero herds there.
Unintended as such a division might be, the consequence for the live trade in direct movement of shippers and secondary movements of light backgrounding types could be significant.
Steady for the moment
SLAUGHTERINGS across the eastern states last week were sitting at 132,392. That’s only 1pc below the previous week’s high point for the year so far, according to MLA’s Market Reporting Service.
This steady flow of cattle has kept over-the-hooks rates unchanged for three weeks now with indicator four-tooth ox at 510c/kg and heavy cow at 455c in southern Queensland.
Queensland’s female kill was down by only 200 head but the male cattle component was back 1500 head due in large part to a day lost at Dinmore.
New South Wales made up for this with 1700 more cattle in their kill last week, mostly females.
But this period of relative harmony is not expected to last.
One major processor I spoke to early in the week said the kill for the latter half of June is looking to be very tight.
He also said that heavier feeder types are becoming noticeably harder to source so while end-of-tax-year considerations may be playing a part it may also be the case that the much anticipated third-quarter supply slump is making an early start.