New Biosecurity Technology Protecting New Zealand Food Security

Onside arms biosecurity managers with new app to protect rural sector

CHRISTCHURCH, NZ, 19 August 2024 – Agri-tech company Onside is delivering new biosecurity technology that is transforming biosecurity practices and helping the primary industries better prepare for and prevent biosecurity incursions.

Onside’s mobile app for rural risk management has mapped more than 16,000 rural properties and logged over 2.6 million movements across New Zealand and Australia. When contractors and visitors check in to rural properties, movement data, including plant material, people, machinery, and equipment, is collected to make it easy to manage health and safety and biosecurity risks—helping farmers and growers stay compliant.

In the last six months, Onside’s new biosecurity tracing software, Onside Intelligence, has identified at least 1,000 check-in movements that presented a heightened risk of spreading a biosecurity threat. Onside’s technology uses data from various sources to create an intricate map of rural interactions and potential disease pathways to support biosecurity management activity – making it easier and faster to detect and respond to outbreaks of pests and diseases.

Ryan Higgs, CEO, Onside, says, “As a country, we face the growing risk that an increasingly diverse set of pests and diseases will cross our borders and impact our all-important primary sector. Time matters in a biosecurity response, and fast access to accurate traceability data is critical for preparing and responding efficiently to a biosecurity incursion.

“MPI’s investment in our technology has been instrumental in getting it into the hands of industry partners working hard to protect farmers and growers. With recent additional support from MPI, we’ve also set up a dedicated science group comprising some of the top minds in biosecurity to tackle the ever-evolving challenges presented by global biosecurity risks.”

Biosecurity New Zealand deputy director-general Stuart Anderson, MPI says, “Biosecurity is crucial for safeguarding our primary sector and economic security. It’s great to see the development of this tool and industry uptake growing for Onside.”

The Onside and MPI partnership was established in 2022 to fast-track the development and adoption of Onside’s biosecurity app through a $9m multi-year project co-invested in by the Ministry for Primary Industries’ Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures fund (SFF Futures).

Industry Partners Adopt Onside's Biosecurity Technology

Biosecurity New Zealand, Kiwifruit Vine Health, New Zealand Winegrowers, NZ Pork, Aquaculture New Zealand, and New Zealand Avocado are the first industry partners to utilise the technology to enhance their biosecurity readiness and response, and quickly carry out traceability exercises. Adoption rates of Onside Intelligence in the kiwifruit and viticulture industry are growing beyond 30% as growers continue to understand the benefits of digital traceability to protect their industry and livelihoods. In some industries like salmon, adoption has grown rapidly to more than 80%.

One of the first industries to deploy Onside Intelligence was New Zealand Winegrowers, the country's grape and wine sector organisation, which sought to test the system to improve traceability in the $2.3bn viticulture sector.

Sophie Badland, Biosecurity Manager, New Zealand Winegrowers, says, "From a production perspective, a large number of grapes must be of the right quality for export-quality wine. An incursion of a new pest or disease, like BMSB or Pierce's disease, could affect both grape quality and quantity, posing a significant challenge for our growers."

One way unwanted organisms can be transmitted between vineyards is through the extensive use of machinery and equipment.

Badland says, “Having a traceability system like Onside Intelligence potentially saves primary industries and the government a lot of time and money in the event of a response. By having movement data readily accessible, we can get ahead of any new damaging pests and diseases, which gives us the best chance of eradication.”

Kiwifruit Vine Health (KVH), a biosecurity organisation dedicated to protecting New Zealand kiwifruit growers from pest and disease threats, was also one of the first to implement Onside’s technology to help protect the $4 billion kiwifruit sector from future incursions.

The kiwifruit industry faced its first big biosecurity challenge just over a decade ago when the bacterial canker Psa spread across orchards and growing regions in the North Island. The Psa response cost the industry an estimated $1 billion in production and profitability, with added social and psychological stresses.

Leanne Stewart, CEO of Kiwifruit Vine Health, says, “This is an important project for KVH as we help ensure industry preparedness for biosecurity to protect orchards, businesses, and livelihoods. Onside is adding great value to growers by improving day-to-day best biosecurity practices in a simple, innovative way.”

The industry partners that have already deployed Onside’s technology are part of the Government Industry Agreement for Biosecurity Readiness and Response (GIA), a formal partnership between the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) and 23 industry organisations.

Investing in Science to Boost Biosecurity

The SFF Futures partnership has also invested $100,000 in a dedicated science program, which aims to ensure Onside’s traceability platform remains world-class and meets the ever-evolving challenges presented by global biosecurity risks. This includes the development of specialised network algorithms that are aimed at providing insights on where incursions might show up and how to respond in the most impactful way.

Higgs says, “Onside has leveraged some of the world's leading scientists to support technology development that provides insights to improve the efficiency of readiness and response. The goal is to detect new incursions as early as possible and minimise impact and cost.”

The science program is governed by an Advisory Committee that includes Dr Mary van Andel, Chief Veterinary Officer at MPI; leading network scientist Professor Santo Fortunato from Indiana University; Dr Hautahi Kingi, a data scientist at Google; and Higgs, who himself is a Fulbright scholar with a PhD in Animal Science from Cornell University.

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