Biosecurity in Australia

Australia sends animals like cows and sheep to other countries so they have more food Our animals are trusted because we take great care of them and keep them healthy and disease-free.

One dangerous disease is Foot and Mouth Disease. It spreads easily between animals and causes blisters and fever. Australia works hard to keep this disease out by:

• checking people and goods at airports and ports
• teaching travellers about what they can bring
• helping farmers keep animals safe and healthy.

Check out this video from Biosecurity Queensland talking with an Australian cattle company about how biosecurity is important to their business and how they are protecting their farm from animal diseases.

In Australia, we grow many kinds of fruits, vegetables, nuts, and flowers. But tiny bugs and diseases can damage them.

Plants can’t be vaccinated like animals. So, we need to stop bugs and diseases before they arrive or spread.

Some bugs and diseases:

• eat or ruin plants
• cause fruit to rot
• make crops weak or die.

This makes food harder to grow and more expensive. That’s why farmers use biosecurity every day.

These are some of the many reasons farmers work hard to have good biosecurity on their farms. Biosecurity Queensland has a good video talking about how a plant nursery uses biosecurity to prevent all of these things from happening.

When you think of animals that live in water (called aquatic animals), you might picture fish swimming around coral reefs. But aquatic animals also include creatures like prawns, crabs, and octopusus.

Growing and collecting aquatic animals and plants (like seaweed) is called aquaculture. It’s an important part of how we get seafood in Australia.

But  aquatic animals from other parts of the world can cause havoc on our waterways and ponds where fish are caught, or sea creatures are being raised. Australian farmers work hard to protect their livestock, even when it’s under water, to make sure there’s plenty of fresh fish, shellfish and other seafood to go around.

Other aquatic diseases  like White spot disease can harm prawns, crabs, and lobsters, and spreads very quickly. It doesn’t hurt people, but it can:

• cause white spots on shells
• stop them from moving around
• make them stop eating
• kill large numbers of them quickly.

Aquaculture farmers do a lot of biosecurity work to help keep their fish healthy from these sorts of diseases.

Check out the video below where Biosecurity Queensland interviews an Australian prawn company about how they use biosecurity in their business and why it’s important to them.