Using augmented reality to educate farmers about emergency animal disease
The red meat and livestock industry contributes more than $18 billion a year of the gross domestic product in Australia and employs either directly or indirectly almost half a million people.
According to the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences, a widespread outbreak of an animal disease would cause economic losses of around $80 billion over 10 years, including flow-on effects through the agricultural supply chain, and in farming communities, hospitality and tourism.
PIRSA worked with the Australian Government–funded Animal Health Australia and immersive technology specialist Think Digital to create a more engaging tool for farmers and launched at Growing SA 2022 the Sheep EAD AR app helps sheep producers identify signs of emergency animal diseases.
Improving our understanding of the risks of LSD incursions via non-regulated pathways
In 2022, the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Forestry asked epidemiologists to figure out how likely it was that lumpy skin disease (LSD) would spread through uncontrolled channels. This modelling was done to help Australia better understand the risk of LSD, find gaps in the evidence we have, and get a better idea of how to get ready.
The results of this work are available here: Improving our understanding of the risks of LSD incursions via non-regulated pathways - DAFF (agriculture.gov.au)
It's important to remember that this modelling is not a forecast, but it does help us learn more about key points of possible entry routes and how risk calculations depend on key parameters like infection rates. The detailed modelling helps us focus our research to lower the chance that LSD will come to Australia and spread.