New recruit working hard to protect our thriving farms

Author: Terry Redman
Published on: 09-December-2009

Quarantine WA are now putting more paws to work, with a new Labrador detection dog assisting the five beagles already helping to protect our $13 billion agriculture industry from the threat of plant and animal pests and diseases. Jasper, at three and a half years old, is Australia’s first ‘passive response’ dog to join the WA team.

Jasper uses his acute sense of smell to detect a target odour on passengers and their luggage and then simply sits beside it to indicate a find, playing a crucial role in identifying fruit and vegetables as well as reptiles and plant material that could pose a biosecurity risk to the States valuable agriculture sector, environment and outdoors lifestyle. The Nationals are committed to ensuring our local produce remains unaffected by exotic pests and disease and I have particularly focused on funding border and quarantine activities to stop pests and diseases before they enter WA.

Jasper can easily detect material hidden inside several layers of plastic and foil, and can even detect small amounts of honey in processed sauces and condiments. He has also assisted in discovering fine – almost microscopic – seed lodged in clothing and bags, fruit is an easy find for Jasper. Up to 2.4 million inter-state travellers are processed by Perth domestic airport and so far the dogs have caught up to 2,850 kg of risk material during quarantine of passengers.
 

On the back of this recent news I am proud to announce that WA’s food exports have achieved a new record of $6 billion over last years record of 4.7 billion. Despite only having 10% of Australian farming land we produce over 20% of agricultural produce.

Our Department of Agriculture and Food is working hard to expand existing export markets and have already started promoting WA exports in Tokyo, London and Shanghai.