The nation’s beef producers have been urged to “get their house in order” around timely decisions to sell livestock, as foot and mouth disease sweeps through the Indonesian archipelago.
It is a month since foot and mouth disease (FMD) was discovered in Indonesia following illegal trade in affected livestock, with local farmers and processors pointing the finger at buffalo meat.
Market analyst Simon Quilty, of Global AgriTrends, called for a ban on tourism travel into the region for at least six months due to the Indonesian Government’s slow response to the crisis, the lack of vaccines and uncontrolled movement of cattle.
“We have a problem on our doorstep we need to think about, not just put our head in the sand,” Mr Quilty said.
Speaking at the Pasture Agronomy Service conference at Wagga Wagga on May 25, Mr Quilty said FMD had spread quickly over the past month throughout Indonesia.
“The real concern is two diseases at play — lumpy skin disease and FMD. If FMD should come to Australia every market open to us closes overnight, but the jury is out on lumpy skin disease,” he said.
“We are confident South Korea would ban us for a minimum of three years and China would ban us overnight.”
Mr Quilty said the Indonesian Government was slow in reporting FMD and a mass culling of the nation’s beef herd was not occurring.
“The reality is it will take eight to 12 months to get on top of FMD and lumpy skin disease will continue to spread ... probably getting into East Timor and Papua New Guinea.
“Until Indonesia fully vaccinates their herd, none of us can rest easy.”
Vaccine supplies for both diseases are tight globally, with the FMD strain in Indonesia only recently identified as IND2001 and it has an incubation period of two to 14 days.
The Indonesian beef industry has entered a lockdown period to prevent animals from being transferred, the government is instigating a 10-step process for vaccines, and there is a groundswell to have buffalo meat banned.
“That created panic with farmers wanting to sell their animals before they get the disease but that rush to the door is spreading the disease quickly,” Mr Quilty said.
“The big concern is the movement of the 17 million pigs within Indonesia as they are viral factories — once a pig gets FMD it produces millions of particles of the disease whereas cattle and goats carry the disease but are not viral factories.
“It is now in the pig population and more concerning is if it gets into Balinese population of 900,000 pigs and 2.5 million cattle as the real worry for us is the tourists.”
Every year pre-COVID, 1.3 million Australians visited Bali.
“We are creating highways through each of our airports at Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane for FMD because it is in Bali — the disease can be carried on clothing,” Mr Quilty said.
“As a country we seriously need to think about banning people going to Bali, as extreme as that sounds.”
The disease could cause cattle fatality rates of 30 to 50 per cent in feedlots, one to five per cent for adult cattle in grazing systems and more than 20 per cent for calves.
But the upside is the impending ban on buffalo meat in Indonesia may open potential market opportunities for Australian boxed beef.