Identifying farms during an incursion response

Access to accurate farm information is a key requirement for managing exotic disease responses.

In the May 2005 response to the Waiheke Island foot and mouth disease hoax, only 61 percent of farms on Waiheke Island were registered in Agribase^TM, New Zealand's national register of farms owned and operated by AgriQuality Limited. The missing data significantly complicated MAF's response.

Biosecurity New Zealand's (BNZ's) Incursion Response System (IRS) application utilises Agribase data to support incursion responses. A recent upgrade to the IRS application enables the initial farm data to be supplemented during a response with valuation data from Territorial Local Authorities,¹ and land parcel data supplied by Land Information New Zealand.

The ability to use data from these three sources provides the most accurate and up-to-date farm information to BNZ's response teams. IRS enables the response team to identify and create missing Agribase farms, either as a batch process for an entire region, or by adding or maintaining farms individually, as shown in Figure 1.

This upgrade to IRS enables BNZ to take advantage of these three sources of property data, instead of relying on just one source. This, in turn, significantly enhances BNZ's ability to identify and locate farms within New Zealand.

¹ Privacy restrictions prevent BNZ from accessing valuation data in advance of an incursion. However, access may be requested for the purpose of managing a response.

Stephanie Mills, Systems Coordinator, Post-clearance, Biosecurity New Zealand, stephanie.mills@maf.govt.nz

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Figure 1: Editing farm areas in the IRS application

Page last updated: 30 April 2008