2021 Lukluk (VSA) - Magazine - Page 17
up in Papua New Guinea
killing thousands of
pigs and endangering
a multimillion-dollar
industry.
With no local veterinarian
to rely on, Talei was
relieved to get support.
“VSA was instrumental in providing
us with key personnel from within
New Zealand’s Ministry of Primary
Industries (MPI) who could give
expert advice on how Samoa
should treat the importation of
canned pork.”
“At the time we could only do
testing for whether the DNA for
swine fever was in there,” says
Talei, “but was it in an active or
inactive state? That’s something
that we could not do. But we got
a lot of help from the MPI
team just informing us on the
way forward and what import
conditions we could implement
until a proper risk assessment
could be conducted.”
“They also helped us with sources
for authentic information on animal
diseases,” says Talei, “that’s a big
problem for us in that we have
importers coming in with the
documents and we don’t know
whether they are authentic, but
the vets are able to work with us
to make sure.”
With restrictions on travel, the
remote assignment work has
been about filling a skill gap.
However, Talei anticipates MAF’s
ongoing relationship with VSA
and MPI will start to build more
capacity in Samoa’s biosecurity
work as in-person training
becomes available “We’re looking
forward to when the lockdown
conditions are taken away because
I know we will gain even more as
people can come in and train a lot
more people hands-on.”
Given the importance of Samoa’s
agriculture to its ongoing food
security and export economy,
growing the biosecurity skill base
will be vital.
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