Background

The Australian chicken meat industry is facing an unprecedented period of biosecurity threat. Understanding the industry’s level of preparedness to manage disease incursions is vital.

At a national level, the industry is involved in benchmarking to identify and address gaps in the biosecurity landscape. A critical deficiency from this exercise is the lack of independent on-farm data to verify the industry’s risk and implementation of biosecurity.

This Request for Quote is seeking a provider to engage with existing industry service suppliers to provide visibility on the degree of on-farm implementation of biosecurity practices from broiler rearing to primary processing, including people, transport and equipment along the supply chain.

The provider will use the National Farm Biosecurity Manual for Chicken Growers, amongst other available sources documenting biosecurity standards relevant to industry best practice, including feed delivery, catching and live bird transport, to prepare materials for use by industry service suppliers. The industry service suppliers will gather and return data to the provider to identify areas of production where on-farm implementation of biosecurity practices presents a higher risk of initial introduction of biosecurity threats or to horizontal spread between farms.

Key activities undertaken by the successful provider will include:

• Engagement with industry to ensure awareness and access to relevant documents to inform project activities
• Engagement with industry to ensure project activities and outputs over the course of the project align with intended objectives and outcomes
• Development of a structured approach (such as checklists using the National Farm Biosecurity Manual and National Biosecurity Manual for Feed Mills as a minimum basis) assessing the effectiveness of on-farm implementation of biosecurity best practice standards to be used by industry service suppliers
• Consideration of any gaps in the developed structed approach
• Analysis of data returned from the on-farm verification

Development of outputs identifying areas of production where on-farm implementation of biosecurity practices presents a higher risk of initial introduction of biosecurity threats or to horizontal spread between farms

Recommendations to address any risks identified

Any other relevant deliverables to support communication and extension of project outcomes

The indicative timeframe of completion of the project from commencement is 24 months.