Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy and Australian Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce, who met today in Melbourne, stressed the importance of collaboration in combating the disease and its devastating impacts.
Guy said greater collaboration would improve readiness and capacity to cope with an outbreak of FMD or any other significant exotic animal disease.
“We will work together in fields such as sharing intelligence on risk, collaborating on training opportunities, sharing scarce skills in the event of an outbreak and influencing international policy in the area of disease management.
“NZ has now joined the well-established Australian FMD training programme in Nepal, which has engaged the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation to provide veterinarians and key livestock industry representatives the opportunity to experience FMD in the field.
“It is well known that an outbreak of FMD would cause significant economic and social damage with the closure of many international markets for animal products and control measures having huge impacts on tourism, food chain businesses, farming families, rural business and communities,” Guy said.
Another benefit of the agreement is helping to ensure an international reserve of veterinary specialists and other skilled personnel can be activated quickly.
NZ recently provided veterinary help to the successful New South Wales avian influenza eradication effort and continues to observe the Australian FMD simulation – Exercise Odysseus – a series of discussion and field-base exercises being held this year.
“Exercise simulations and participation in activities also ensures there is a mutual understanding of how systems work in the other country, which means that staff can rapidly integrate into the other country’s systems in the event they are needed,” Guy said.
Joyce said “Our number one plan and focus of much of our biosecurity efforts is to keep FMD out of Australia and NZ but you can’t stick your head in the sand about something this significant – you have to plan for the worst.”
