Some Perceptions of Footrot Eradication in North-Western New-South Wales

The Footrot Strategic Plan (FSP) aims to progressively eradicate non-benign footrot in sheep from New South Wales. All but a small portion of the drier regions of NSW is now gazetted with Protected Area status - placing legal requirements on farmers and relevant authorities in relation to disease notification and, where disease exists, farm quarantine and disease eradication. The author's experience from north western NSW suggests, however, that despite these legal requirements, many local producers would be unlikely to notify upon suspecting disease. Furthermore, of those producers with properties quarantined for footrot during the period 1990-1992 in the Coonamble Rural Lands Protection Board, almost half lacked a real commitment to footrot eradication.Research towards improving the FSP and related programs has been dominated by methods to overcome technical obstacles. In non-endemic regions of NSW, such as the north west, however, major constraints on the FSP include problems of an economic or social nature. This paper discusses some constraints limiting the acceptance and adoption of the FSP in the Coonamble region of NSW and identifies some possible solutions to these problems.