KEY POINTS

• VegWatch represents a unified effort to protect and prepare Australia’s vegetable industry against pests that are not currently found in Australia.
• The program is updating the list of exotic, emerging and established pests that could impact vegetable production.
• Risk mapping is being used to inform the development of targeted surveillance strategies based on climate suitability, habitat preferences, and potential entry pathways of priority pests.
• Diagnostic capabilities are crucial, and the program is also developing rapid identification methods to distinguish new pests quickly when they are found.
• The collaborative approach involves industry, government bodies, and research institutions.

Australia’s vegetable industry is undertaking a crucial biosecurity initiative that brings together skills and capacity from industry, government agencies and research institutions. This collaborative
program, referred to as VegWatch and funded through Hort Innovation, is developing robust early detection, surveillance and diagnostic strategies to protect national vegetable producing
businesses from new and emerging pest and disease threats and support a swifter, risk-based return to trade for farm businesses.

Many vegetables…how many pests?

One of the first key steps in the program is to determine which pests are of greatest priority for the vegetable industry to invest resources for maximum impact. With more than 20 different vegetables and herbs represented by AUSVEG, this is no small task.

Dr Stephen Quarrell, Biosecurity Planning Manager with Plant Health Australia (PHA), is leading the development of the new Vegetable Industry Biosecurity Plan, a key component of the VegWatch project, and is short-listing the industry’s high priority pests. His team have established a comprehensive list of more than 800 insects, fungi, viruses, nematodes and other organisms that are not known to be present in Australia but could impact on vegetable production if they were to arrive. This list is reviewed by industry specialists and scientists from government bodies and peak industry organisations to prioritise potential threats.

PHA’s Dr Stephen Quarrell and his team are reviewing and revising the Vegetable Industry Biosecurity Plan to prioritise pests of the vegetable industry.

“Being prepared is crucial,” Dr Quarrell states. “We’re developing a list of high-­priority pests by consulting with industry experts, government bodies, and peak organisations like AUSVEG.”

He explains the complexity of identifying these threats: “We consider multiple factors – how invasive a pest is, how frequently it’s intercepted at our borders, its potential economic impact. The goal is to distil a vast list of potential threats into a manageable, focused set that the industry can prepare for.”

Knowing which pests are of greatest concern also means that, as an industry, we can be better prepared and informed about how these pests behave, and what we can have in place to make sure we are able to respond more quickly when they arrive.

Detecting pests early can mean the difference between eradication or establishment

The sooner a new pest is found, the greater the opportunity to contain and eradicate, or manage it effectively, preventing what may begin as a small incident from becoming an industry-wide issue.

The Commonwealth and state governments maintain networks of traps and other tools to detect priority pests early for this reason. This is also why when you find a pest that you suspect may be new to Australia, you are encouraged to report it to the Exotic Plant Pest hotline (1800 084 881).

Developing nationally-accepted, effective methods to find priority pests that could impact vegetable production early is a key component of VegWatch.

. Dr Tim Hurst, Surveillance Strategist with Agriculture Victoria, leads the surveillance stream to develop nationally-accepted, standardised protocols to guide the methods for early detection of priority pests for the vegetable industry.

“Surveillance can mean a lot of things to different people,” explains Dr Tim Hurst, Senior Officer – Plant Surveillance with Agriculture Victoria.

“In my role, I’m focused on early detection – finding that first potential threat before it can establish and spread. We have many systems and tools, but we’re not using them as effectively as we could.”

As part of the VegWatch program, Dr Hurst and his team are focused on creating consistency in biosecurity approaches, developing nationally accepted, standardised protocols that allow everyone to work from the same playbook.

“If everyone’s reading the same [surveillance protocol] document and following best practices, we can trust that our national pest and disease monitoring data is top-notch,” he says.

To help inform the surveillance strategies, Dr James Camac, Project Manager of Biosecurity Commons and Chief Investigator at the Centre of Excellence for Biosecurity Risk Analysis (CEBRA), brings sophisticated risk mapping capabilities to the program.

Biosecurity Commons is a cloud-based platform that enables researchers and decision makers to map and analyse risks posed by pests of biosecurity concern by considering factors such as climate suitability, habitat and host availability and potential entry pathways. Risk modelling helps to inform surveillance activities by identifying locations or pathways by which a pest is most likely to enter or establish, allowing targeted allocation and placement of surveillance resources.

Dr. Camac breaks down the approach to risk mapping simply:

“We’re looking at three fundamental factors that limit a [plant pest] species’ establishment and spread – climate suitability, habitat preferences, and the likelihood of arrival,” he says.

Dr James Camac, Program Manager and Chief Investigator at CEBRA, manages Biosecurity Commons, a cloud analytics platform designed to provide transparent and reproducible biosecurity analytics.

For example, if a pest is likely to enter the country through freight and packaged items, it would be most effective to position surveillance activities around locations that receive these goods, such as ports or facilities, but which also occur where there are the necessary habitat and climate requirements for the pest to be able to establish.

By mapping pest invasion pathways, assessing climate suitability, and identifying host availability, risk models can generate hotspots. These hotspots indicate where surveillance efforts should be focused to increase the chances of early pest detection.

How do we know the pest we have found is what we think it is?

Once a pest is found, it is also important that we have the capacity to accurately and rapidly confirm that it is what we think it is. Dr Paul Campbell, Principal Plant Pathologist at the Queensland Department of Primary Industries, brings a pragmatic approach to the VegWatch program.

“Our job is to move from ‘we don’t know what this is’ to a definitive ‘yes or no’ as quickly as possible,” he explains.

Dr Campbell’s focus is on diagnostic protocols, with the goal of quickly and accurately identifying potential biosecurity threats. He and his team, along with other scientists across the country, will develop methods to rapidly and accurately identify and confirm the pest that has been found.

This includes distinguishing the pest from those that are already present in Australia. Some exotic insect pests may look similar to insects already in the country, just as some pathogens result in disease symptoms that may look similar to those caused by pathogens (or even nutritional disorders) that are already present in the country.

Dr Campbell uses a memorable metaphor to describe their diagnostics work.

Dr Paul Campbell, Principal Plant
Pathologist, Queensland Department of Primary Industries will focus on developing diagnostic protocols, with the goal of quickly and accurately
identifying potential pests of biosecurity concern to the vegetable industry

“When you’ve been looking at horses all day, you start to think everything is a horse. But sometimes, they’re zebras – and in biosecurity, those zebras are the exotic incursions we need to be ready to identify,” he says.

Collaboration, innovation and preparation

VegWatch represents a sophisticated, multi-disciplinary approach to biosecurity, combining surveillance, risk analysis, diagnostic capabilities, and collaborative planning to protect one of Australia’s vital agricultural sectors.

The team’s approach goes beyond simple threat identification and detection. It’s about creating a comprehensive, collaborative system that can quickly detect and respond to potential biosecurity challenges.

As Dr Hurst puts it, “We’re working towards supporting business continuity and risk mitigation. Our goal is to provide tools that can lessen or potentially remove risks entirely.”

By developing a comprehensive understanding of potential threats, standardised surveillance protocols, risk maps, diagnostic techniques, the program will:

• Provide early detection tools
• Create consistent national surveillance approaches
• Develop rapid diagnostic capabilities
• Minimise potential economic disruptions
• Protect agricultural, environmental, and social values.

“It’s about being prepared,” Dr Quarrell reiterates. “Knowing what to look for, understanding potential impacts, and having the right methodologies in place.”

Dr Camac summarises the project’s essence: “We’re bringing rigor and cutting-edge analytics to biosecurity, ensuring that our vegetable industry remains protected and resilient.”

FURTHER READING

• VegWatch program
• AUSVEG Farm Biosecurity project
• National priority plant pests (2024)