Farm biosecurity is a set of management practices and activities. It is the responsibility of every farm worker, manager and visitor to implement these practices. Farm biosecurity components are carried out on-farm with the purpose of providing protection from the entry, establishment and spread of pests.

The term ‘pests’ covers all organisms that harm plants or the quality of plant products, and it includes insects, mites, snails, nematodes, pathogens (eg the causes of fungal, bacterial, viral plant diseases) and their vectors, and weeds.

This 50-page Manual provides guidance on people, plant material (including weeds), equipment and vehicle, and farm input movement; waste disposal; monitoring and inspections; and record-keeping. Underpinning the recommendations is an understanding of the threats to the Northern Adelaide Plains (NAP) vegetable farms, and the conditions that contribute to the presence of the individual pests. The Manual includes fact sheets on ‘exotic’ threats (i.e. pests not currently in Australia), ‘alert’ threats (i.e. pests that are in Australia but not in NAP crops) and on ‘problem endemic’ threats (i.e. pests that are on the NAP but not easily managed).

The Manual includes a summary of priority actions, a useful contacts list, photos of threats, and clear steps to improving biosecurity. It also contains a sample ‘Pest surveillance data sheet’ and a sample ‘Visitor register’. For regional managers of biosecurity on the NAP, further information is available in the Final Report on HAL Project VG09085, ‘A Scoping Study to Develop a Regional Biosecurity Framework for the Northern Adelaide Plains’.