Stricter biosecurity border measures needed to prevent foot-and-mouth disease, say Riverina livestock farmers

While still not yet detected in Australia, fears of the biosecurity risk reaching the country were amplified when FMD was recently detected in the popular holiday destination of Bali.

Borambola cattle farmer Murray Sowter said the country's only hope of avoiding disastrous results was to stop the disease from entering in the first place.

"If we don't stop it at the borders, it will be catastrophic," he said.

"Our border security in airports, that's the first and basically last line of defence."

The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics have estimated an $80 billion loss to the livestock industry if FMD was to take hold locally.

"I'd even suggest it could end up more than that," said Mr Sowter, who runs about 650 head of cattle across his property near Wagga and a dairy farm in the Southern Highlands.

"The cost of eradication, the cost of lost opportunity in export markets.

"Because it would not only be red meat - wool and all those kinds of things would have to stop in the short term, let alone if government was to see fit to compensate people for their losses."

Working on English farms in the 1970s that were previously impacted by FMD, Mr Sowter understands the dramatic measures that must be taken to prevent its spread.

"If you get it on your property and heaven forbid we never do, they take everything," he said.

"The government just steps in, takes control - not only your farm, the neighbour's farms, the whole area, everything is locked down.

Mr Sowter said it only takes one positive case for every animal on a property to be slaughtered, with a potential two year wait before a farmer is allowed to restock.

Riverina Sustainable Food Alliance (RSFA) member and Riverina livestock operator James Gooden has led the local charge in asking for further border control beyond recent efforts which include biosecurity detector dogs, mailing inspections, airport signage and social media campaigns.

"We're complimentary on what minister Watt has implemented but we believe at this stage that's still only a bandaid measure," he said.

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"We have to have travel restrictions in the short term and anyone returning from Indonesia, their footwear should be incinerated.

"The cost of travel and the cost of having time out is to basically be prepared to save the nation from what could be an absolutely diabolical, the worst of the worst, diseases that could possibly be inflicted on us."

The RSFA has also called for screening and disinfectant spraying of all luggage returning from Indonesia, proposing a biosecurity levy on all cattle, sheep and pigs sold in Australia to help cover government costs.

"[FMD will] have a far greater impact on the industry then what COVID has," Mr Gooden said.

Wagga-based Riverina Livestock Agents director Tim Drum said there remains plenty of unknown around the wider-reaching impact of FMD.

"It could shut our industry down to a standstill for a period of time until we can clarify that we don't have it in our areas here," he said.

"If it gets into our wild population of wildlife, you wouldn't keep it out."

Mr Drum agreed that more drastic biosecurity measures at the border might need to be taken.

"Potentially, if it's getting that bad over there, close the borders to those countries," he said.

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