Animal Health Australia is reviewing the five-year National Ovine Johne's disease (OJD) management plan, which has been in effect since 2013. During this period, all states except South Australia have largely deregulated OJD at the state level. Regional Biosecurity Plans have not been well supported, and abattoir monitoring and surveillance has been ad hoc and of limited effectiveness. Moving forward, we need a national approach.
Regulating a disease can lead to perverse outcomes if it creates a financial incentive to hide infections. If producers are penalised when they detect disease, then they may prefer simply not to test.
Currently producers can choose not to test either through choosing an abattoir that does not conduct abattoir surveillance or not opting in to OJD screening in abattoirs that do test. This situation is a direct result of the negative regulatory impact and subsequent pressure from producers within some regional biosecurity areas preferring not to know about disease rather than controlling it.
A consistent national approach of monitoring and risk management is needed, which focuses on controlling the overall level of disease rather than ineffectively trying to limit the spread. The current regulation will only cause more pain in the future as the total level of the disease builds up, if not identified early.
The impacts of worms, flystrike, lice, footrot and many other conditions cause far greater production losses to the sheep industry. MLA estimated that internal parasites cost the national industry $436 million, while Ovine Johne’s Disease cost roughly $35 million. Yet stigma, fear mongering and denial remain about a disease that can be easily managed through vaccination, good farm biosecurity measures, and monitoring without recrimination if detected. OJD regulation not only drives the disease underground, it limits the ability of individual farmers to make their own decisions for their businesses in choosing replacement and stud stock, limiting the genetic gain.
The VFF is calling upon the national sheep industry to adopt self-regulation. The solution is straightforward: treat OJD as an endemic disease that requires a national approach to monitoring. This is an opportunity to build robustness and a consistent approach that reflects our industry, not the straight lines on a map drawn by colonists.
