With Foot and Mouth disease now in Bali, returning travellers are warned to take the threat seriously. Photo: Mutenagen
Year in Review: Region Riverina is revisiting some of the best Opinion articles of 2022. Here’s what got you talking, got you angry and got you thinking in 2022. Today, Chris Roe warns of the perils of Foot and Mouth disease.
As Australia’s new Agriculture minister headed for Indonesia this week following the news that the devastatingly contagious foot and mouth disease had reached Bali, I was reminded of my time in England 21 years ago.
In 2001, my wife and I were a pair of fresh-faced 20-something Aussies from the bush, off to do our obligatory pilgrimage to the UK.
At that time the world was on the cusp of the digital media revolution and we were only obliquely aware of the deadly epizootic disease that was steadily sending rural England into lockdown.
As we headed north from London to Scotland the signs became hard to miss.
The famous walking trails of the Peak District and the Derbyshire Moores, where I had hoped to follow in my grandfather’s footsteps, were closed and signs everywhere pleaded with passers-by to “Please keep off this land”.
A photo from our neighbouring farm gate in Gloucestershire, England in 2001. Photo: Chris Roe
While the economic impact on British tourism can’t be underestimated, the minor inconvenience to travellers like us was nothing compared to the devastation visited on the agriculture industry.
As we settled down to live and work on a small farm in rural Gloucestershire, neighbouring paddocks were empty, the paths remained closed, disinfecting our boots when we travelled became routine and the nightly news was filled with images of suffering animals, burning livestock and grief-stricken farmers.
Cattle, sheep and pigs were slaughtered in their millions, communities were crippled and the financial cost counted in the billions.
So as Australian farmers peer anxiously across the Arafura Sea, the risks cannot be overstated.
If the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us anything, it is just how vulnerable to disease we are, despite our ocean borders.
Catherine Marriott took to Twitter to warn travellers of the risks. Photo: Twitter
Catherine Mariott is the CEO of farming advocacy group Riverine Plains and posted a video to Twitter this week that quickly went viral.
“This disease is horrific, it’s extremely cruel and it’s massively important that we keep it out of Australia,” she warned.
“It will destroy families and rural communities, but importantly, it will also destroy your ability to eat safe Australian grown meat.”
I spoke to Catherine from Townsville and she explained what prompted her to speak out.
“I was walking my dog randomly at seven o’clock on Sunday morning, and I just thought, we can’t rely on government to do this for us,” she said.
In the video Catherine encouraged travellers returning from Bali to go to extreme lengths to avoid contamination, even leaving their shoes and clothes behind.
“I wanted to try and inspire in people a sense of national pride and to inspire people to do the right thing because they understand why it’s important and how it’s actually going to impact them,” she said.
“If this thing gets in, it’ll gallop like wildfire.”
It only takes one pair of dirty boots to spread FNM. Photo: bitenka
Farmers have also been urged to ensure that strict biosecurity measures are in place.
“Most farmers do have them – but make sure they’re actually being enacted on,” Catherine said.
“Foot baths, making sure that vehicles that come onto your property are washed down, particularly livestock trucks, and EID-ing (Electronic Identification) your livestock so that you have that traceability.”
She reflected that Australia is facing a new era of biosecurity risks and can’t afford to be complacent.
“We’ve had COVID, we’ve got varroa mite now in the bee industry, there’s lumpy skin (disease) up in Indonesia, there’s foot and mouth disease up in Indonesia,” she said.
“We need to stop taking advantage of the clean green image in Australia and actually work really hard to protect it, because we are an island, so we have that opportunity to do so.”
Back in the UK, as the outbreak was brought under control in late 2001, the butcher’s bill is thought to have been around £8 billion.
The livestock industry in Australia today is worth in excess of $80 billion.
With foot and mouth disease less than 3,000km from our shores, we are only one grubby thong or dodgy souvenir away from disaster.
As Catherine says, it’s up to all of us to take care, understand the risk and do our part to protect our livestock sector.
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