Around 90 industry members, government officials and producers met in Brisbane on Tuesday for the AgForce 2023 On-Farm Biosecurity Summit, with the knowledge gap in peri-urban areas being a topic of discussion.
On behalf of the AgForce Biosecurity committee, Belinda Callanan spoke about several projects the group had been working on, including a workshop series addressing the lack of understanding around the role of biosecurity in agriculture.
Ms Callanan said the workshops were aimed at addressing the knowledge gap for people who were new to rural areas and lacked understanding on the topic.
"We'd identified that the peri-urban expansion in broadacre areas is huge, particularly in the southeast, and right up and down the east coast," she said.
"We found that there was a genuine lack of understanding about pest animal management within that community.
"This also coincides with the new regulations regarding schedule seven toxins such as 1080, PAPP and strychnine, and the change over to Queensland Health managing them."
According to Ms Callanan, the practical element of hands on training, as well as local government and Queensland Health involvement had been vital for the workshops, which were conducted at Gympie, Toogoolawah and Boonah.
When asked what gaps she believed needed to be addressed, in terms of the "encroachment of urban areas into agricultural districts," Ms Callanan said baiting was an area with a significant amount of misunderstanding.
She said it was also difficult for producers to know the correct procedure when trying to eradicate feral animals, and it would be a target area for the committee moving forward.
"There's some massive gaps - I believe that a lot of urban people move into those areas and have no idea, particularly with broadacre practices," she said.
"There's a lot of issues with understanding local government regulations, our Biosecurity Act, and then genuine understanding of why broadacre agriculture uses toxins, specifically for pest animals - wild dogs, feral pigs and so forth - and then trying to overcome some of those regulations as well.
"We worked very closely with some of the councillors to try and overcome some of those barriers that producers were having, particularly with trying to bait, and notification.
"So, who do they have to notify and how do they notify all these people, when all they want to do is get rid of the wild dog or a feral pig?
"There is some huge learnings to come out of that and some huge gap areas."
Ms Callanan said the committee would continue to provide educational resources through their website, newsletter, and hopefully, more face-to-face workshops.
"I find that, particularly in that urban fringe area, people want knowledge so they welcome to attend workshops with open arms with regards to landcare or biosecurity activities," she said.
"There's still that dire need to actually do face to face workshops and it's very resource hungry, and that's something that we need to overcome."
