When Guests bring you Pests
There is the old saying that goes something like ‘some visitors bring pleasure when they arrive, others bring pleasure when they leave’.
In the biosecurity world, guests can also bring pain onto your property in the form of disease, weedseed and other contaminants that can see your operations and supply chain shut down whilst tracing and decontamination or eradication takes place.
Recently, I observed a training exercise at a large saleyards whilst assisting a client familiarise staff with biosecurity response procedures. These yards see many thousands of animals pass through each week with buyers, sellers and agents (& the sheep and cattle) coming from a wide area for sale days and included a holding area for private sales. It was a well run operation - modern yards that were well equipped and laid out with good animal welfare and contingency planning measures and it was clear that the staff were well trained. As a livestock aggregation point though, and a high volume one with a large catchment area at that, it screamed ‘biosecurity risk!’
Naturally, I asked the manager what their emergency plans were in the event of a livestock disease detection and the conversation lead to the biosecurity measures for human visitors to prevent diseases entering the facility and minimising the spread off-site. I had observed that visitors had to enter the yards by crossing a dirt run and the risk of contamination of footwear was clear. His answer shocked me - the consultant working with the yards on their biosecurity planning had allegedly said that footbaths were a “waste of time” and the manager was adamant that he was sticking with that advice not to waste time and money installing them as a measure to prevent the introduction or spread of biosecurity risks.
On one hand I could see the sense. Too often you will measures like footbaths installed on properties but visitors step around them or only give their boots a light rinse without removing all of the potential contaminants or the baths aren’t maintained and become ineffective.
It surprised me however that an effective risk management measure was summarily dismissed in this way (& do wonder if this was the complete advice given).
Risk management planning should consider all possible options and how they can be implemented effectively and not bypassed.
A strong risk management plan then adopts a multi-layered approach with complementary measures that each reduce the risk to an acceptable level.
In this case, installing footbaths at key entry points and educating visitors through ‘in your face’ signage on the importance of biosecurity and how to ‘decon’ on and off the property can be backed up by other messaging to make the measure more effective.
Complementing this with options such facilities to store ‘saleyard’ boots on-site so visitors wear different boots at the saleyards to what they wear off-site and enforcing a visitor register then strengthens the risk management approach. Unfortunately though, in this case, it was already the end of conversation.... there wasn’t no scope to consider footbaths further as their consultant had passed judgement and knew best. My party certainly made sure that they 'decon'ed' off the property though.
The lesson I wish I could get through to the saleyards manager?
Never rely on a single measure to manage your risk but don’t dismiss measures in isolation either.
Every measure helps reduce your risk. Whilst, in this case, a footbath isn’t a complete solution, installing the footbath and backing it up with complementary explanations is certainly better than dismissing their use completely.
Want to know more about managing biosecurity risks from visitors? Check this article on the farm biosecurity website - https://www.farmbiosecurity.com.au/separating-the-guests-from-the-pests/ - or leave a question below.