Friday, March 29, 2024

Edge: Nait criticisms are unfair

Neal Wallace
After three and a half years Michelle Edge leaves her role as OSPRI chief executive. She talked to Neal Wallace about her time in the role and addresses some of the criticisms of Nait.
Reading Time: 4 minutes

Michelle Edge is unflinching in her view it is unfair and unreasonable to claim Nait has failed.

As a legislative process Nait is relatively young, being introduced five years ago, but it is not fully appreciated how successful the system has been at providing product integrity and mitigating the risk of products that are not traceable and could pose a risk to human health entering the food chain.

Nait is working well at saleyards and meat plants but relies on farmers fulfilling their obligations for the collection of traceability data for stock sales between farms.

Edge said the exact level of non-compliance is unknown because there are significant gaps in knowledge and data, such as the exact number of farms in New Zealand and how many animals are on those properties.

National data inside or outside the Nait database on the number of stock held is crucial for biosecurity and especially for managing transmitable diseases.

Those gaps and some farmers not providing information limit the availability of data. Nait does not know what it does not know.

There has been criticism Nait has performed poorly at tracing livestock in response to the Mycoplasma bovis outbreak but Edge disagrees.

She said it had performed well and a biosecurity outbreak such as M bovis will always challenge any traceability system.

Nait handles a million movements a month and has prepared 3500 reports for the Primary Industries Ministry as part of its M bovis response.

If the disease had arrived in 2014, a year after Nait was formed, Nait would not have had sufficient history of stock movements to help MPI.

Now the time was right to do a national audit. Edge suggested one be held next year.

It could be based on the Australian national livestock standstill exercise, in which a statistically significant number of premises were audited to determine the exact number of animals and animal movements that were then compared with Nait data to determine how well the traceability system functioned.

“It is a logical step to take to measure the overall uptake and adherence. NZ should conduct a nationwide distribution exercise to test that.”

It would identify gaps and ways to fill them and be part of the natural evolution of any legislative programme to implement, evaluate and improve.

To source data missing from Nait or expand it to include sheep would be a major exercise, requiring significant change and compliance, which was counter to the simplified system sought by the industry.

Edge is not advocating a new system or dramatic changes, saying the Nait review highlighted improvements to the system and found NZ traceability has performed well when compared internationally.

But an option to improve the information gathered is to align animal status declaration forms (ASD) with Nait through a documentation trail from farmer, transporter and receiver.

The specific numbering of the form and the addition of slaughter surveillance data would provide animal identification for any diseases and the ability to trace them back to the source.

The consignment declaration would also help verify records of Nait movements.

She is confident technology will eventually find a simple, workable solution.

Britain has introduced animal passports that accompany livestock transactions but Edge said physically monitoring every transaction in the field in NZ is not feasible, making regular national audits coupled with the presence in the field of inspectors a key.

NZ is no different to any other country learning and refining its traceability system following a biosecurity breach.

Despite the relative muted international reaction to NZ’s M bovis outbreak, Edge hopes it will be a wake-up call to farmers to be more diligent in fulfilling Nait’s requirements.

An independent review of the Nait programme made 37 recommendations of which 23 are being implemented operationally. The rest are regulatory and being considered by MPI.

They broadly focus on retaining accurate animal location and tracing information while making it easier for users, clarifying roles, responsibilities and standards for users and agencies, improving the design and other aspects of Nait and improving farmer and industry uptake, use and compliance.

The review process is now entering the consultation and implementation stage.

In addition, MPI and Nait have begun strengthening compliance by doing joint operations of more than 200 farms and saleyards to check adherence to Nait.

In March MPI also did a further 19 proactive operations including checking stock crossing Cook Strait.

MPI’s compliance investigations manager Gary Orr last month said while M bovis improved knowledge of Nait, some farmers are still ignoring their legal obligations.

Because of those operations, infringement notices were issued, warning letters written and eight investigations could result in further infringement notices.

Edge said her joining OSPRI coincided with the National Pest Management Plan review for TB, which resulted in a $20 million cut in income.

Her first job was to restructure OSPRI and implement a change-management process.

The Nait review is in a similar position, with a likely period of change following the implementation of the recommendations to set a course for the company for the future.

While at OSPRI she also implemented the TB programme, an unusual project in the sense NZ is the only country in the world addressing wildlife vectors and livestock spreading the disease.

Edge, who was born and raised in Melbourne, said her love of science developed into a fascination with food production systems.

She studied agricultural science at Melbourne University then had stints that included working for the Victorian government as an animal welfare scientist where she wrote standards and legislation for animal welfare.

For four years before joining OSPRI Edge was chief executive of the Australian Meat Processor Corporation, similar to the NZ Meat Industry Association.

“I am interested in helping to develop what are crucial industries for NZ and Australia.”

Edge and her daughter then moved to NZ when she took up the OSPRI position but with her daughter starting school next year the time is right to rethink her career and reset her priorities.

She said she enjoyed working with staff and farmers, who she described as earthy, genuine and realists.

Edge and OSPRI are still to confirm when her tenure will end and she will ensure a smooth transition.

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