Foot and Mouth Disease risk pathways
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3 min read
A risk pathway is a method through which infection or disease can reach or spread from your farm. This page emphasises the importance of being prepared to prevent foot and mouth disease in New Zealand. You can protect your farm by understanding and managing the risk pathways specific to your farm. DairyNZ, in collaboration with the Ministry for Primary Industries, provides tools like a farm map and checklist to help you identify and mitigate these risks. The page also outlines important on-farm practices like record-keeping and cleaning processes to further safeguard against the disease.
A risk pathway is a way infection or disease can reach your farm and livestock or be spread from your farm.
Being prepared is our best defence to stamp out foot and mouth disease quickly if it were to reach New Zealand. You can do your part by knowing the risk pathways on your farm and having the right information on hand and up to date.
To help stop the spread of foot and mouth disease onto or off your farm should it arrive in New Zealand, it’s important to know what risks might apply to your farm and how you can mitigate these risks to safeguard your property and others.
Remember to stop, check, clean and report
If a foot and mouth disease outbreak were to occur in New Zealand, restrictions will be put in place on certain activities, and on the movements of animals and products to reduce the spread of the disease. You may be required to provide information (via a permitting system) if your farm is to undertake certain on-farm activities or to access certain services, so having key on-farm information on hand and up to date will be crucial. This information will also support MPI as the lead agency for biosecurity response, to identify infected properties, the modes of spread, and help stamp out foot and mouth disease.
Use the foot and mouth disease information checklist below to ensure you have on-hand and up-to-date information to help you be best prepared for foot-and-mouth disease and other disease threats.
| Foot and mouth disease information checklist | ||
| STOP AND CHECK | ANIMALS |
NAIT - Identification and Movements • Is my NAIT location registered? Animal Records • Have I completed ASD/ eASD forms for the movements of animals where there is a different person in charge or when they are going to slaughter? Do I keep records of where we source our animals from? (e.g., property types, region) |
| BIOSECURITY PLAN |
Do we have a Biosecurity Plan in place for our farm? • What is our farm's risk pathways for foot and mouth disease? |
|
| OTHER PATHWAYS |
Farm Boundaries Raw milk Pigs |
|
| CLEAN | CLEAN ON AND OFF PROCESSES |
What cleaning, disinfection and treatment processes do we use for people and equipment coming on and going off farm? • Have I communicated what a good clean on and off process looks like to my farm team and any contractors or frequent visitors? |
| REPORT | FOOT AND MOUTH DISEASE SYMPTOMS |
Do I know the symptoms of foot and mouth disease and know what to look out for in cattle? • Have I talked with my farm team about foot and mouth disease and what to do if they see symptoms suspected of being foot and mouth disease? |