Investment

Exotic pests and diseases are a threat to Australian agriculture as they can potentially damage crops, increase costs and inhibit exports. The potential annual cost to growers to control an incursion and impact on trade during an incursion is conservatively estimated at $100.4M. Timeliness of detection and response are critical to success when it comes to biosecurity. Early detection of a pest or disease can mean the difference between cost-effective control and the devastation of an industry. In instances where the pest or disease is detected early it may be easier to eliminate it or control it and use fewer resources in doing so.
Biosecurity diagnostics require a major uplift to improve throughput and timeliness, which can be achieved through the modernisation of diagnostics methods. The grains industry faces increased biosecurity risks from a range of factors including increased international movement in trade and people, increasing chemical resistance, decrease in number of traditional taxonomists, and increasing cost of inputs. There is a need to provide the grains industry with fast, accurate diagnostics for key industry personnel, including growers, to enable timely management decisions that reduce the impact of biotic threats on grain crops.
Of the 54 high priority exotic grains pests that could impact the Australian grains industry, less than 10% have an approved National Diagnostic Protocol and none are based on high throughput sequencing (HTS). Similarly, many of the established diseases and pests (endemics) do not have diagnostics based on HTS.

UA/SARDI will be working on the following areas:
Theme A: Adoption of modern quantitative PCR (qPCR) and HTS platforms as diagnostics standards for the Australian grain industry
Theme B: In-field or near field diagnostics systems advanced and implemented for near real time identification of biotic threats.