Dirty Not-So-Little Secrets About How Weeds Move

Every time you visit a farm, orchard, or nursery you MUST clean and disinfect your footwear or leave them behind. Anything less almost certainly means spreading weeds as this article from the Progressive Farmer exposes.  “We planted the mud from two pairs of boots in a greenhouse flat.  “It really wasn’t all that much mud. […]

Biosecurity Week 2020 – vigilence and hygiene

Monday, 27 July marks the start of Biosecurity Week 2020, which will see a week of activities across Aotearoa in which those working in the biosecurity sector highlight their work to their communities.  The event is led by the NZ Biosecurity Institute and this year’s theme is 20-20 Vigilance. Institute president Alice McNatty said Covid 19 has shown […]

2020 is the International Year of Plant Health

The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) estimates that up to 40% of food crops are lost due to plant pests and diseases annually! This leaves millions of people without enough food to eat and seriously damages agriculture – the primary source of income for rural poor communities. Climate change and human activities […]

People at the heart of Biosecurity

Often we think about the cost of biosecurity incursions in terms of the millions of dollars spent eradicating or mitigating or of the number of animals/produce culled or destroyed. As a result its easy to neglect the human cost and in doing so justify our own inaction.  We commend MPI for reminding us that Biosecurity […]

Effluent ruled out as vector for M. Bovis transmission

It was awesome news that MPI in its stakeholder update last week, effectively ruled out effluent as a transmission vector for M. Bovis – that’s one less disease transmitted in poo (lets not forget there are other diseases that can be). It was also good to see MPI reiterate the general hygiene message and for […]

Eight years is long enough – let’s step-up in 2019

We thought we’d start the New Year with a reflection on 2018, to set the scene for the year ahead. Last year, KPMG’s 2018 Agribusiness Agenda provided some powerful insights into the current thinking about New Zealand’s Biosecurity. For the 60 business and farming leaders who were surveyed for the agenda, the top priority among […]

Low risk, does not mean NO risk

For those properties impacted directly by M.Bovis (NODs and RPs), Biosecurity New Zealand recently made some updates and changes to its advice around cleaning and disinfecting. Some items were downgraded from high risk to medium or low, including: equipment or material from bovine milking or milk handling environments (medium) bovine genetic material (low) effluent/soil (extremely […]

Inventing a footwear biosecurity system for farms – Coast and Country

Many thanks to the Coast and Country team for paying us a visit and sharing our story following the Biosecurity Awards late last year. Check out Catherine Fry’s story: https://www.coastandcountrynews.co.nz/news/3732-inventing-footwear-biosecurity-system-farms.html

Jacson Cube® wins 2018 Biosecurity Awards innovation category

It was an honour to be named winner of the innovation category at this year’s Biosecurity Awards which were held in Auckland this week. Biosecurity underpins the New Zealand environment, lifestyle, economy and identity, and it was amazing to be sitting among people from around Aotearoa who are working so hard to protect what’s precious. […]

Factors that influence behaviour change

At Jacson3 we’re very interested in contributing to the improvement of on-farm biosecurity.  Having worked with farmers most of his life Rusty knows how hard it is to bring about change in our farming/growing sectors.  This easily read paper by Les Robinson sheds light on the factors that influence the speed of change. In addition […]