VALUE FOR MONEY
A benefit/cost analysis is attached.

LEVEL OF IMPACT
The potential impacts of the project relate to both product food safety and quality.

Food safety:
There is a need for acquiring time/temperature data for critical process steps that impact on the ability of foodborne pathogens to grow, notably Vibrio spp.. In a recent discussion paper by Codex Alimentarius (CX/FH 05/37/13), the impacts of seafood related illnesses were summarised, ‘The economic effects of illnesses reverberate throughout the seafood supply industry causing loss of consumer confidence and concomitant loss of sales. Consequently, a slowing effect for seafood sales overall occurs, which can represent a short-term serious economic loss. In general, the various reports of seafood related illnesses also appear to combine to affect the entire seafood supply in a cumulative fashion, which can lead to long term depressed sales’. The impact of this work will be a decreased risk of economic loss due to any risk of associated illness and also target further/ follow on research for the development of a predictive tool to better manage food safety risks.

Product quality:
There is a need to evaluate the effectiveness of cool chain management across major supply chains. Successful development of a temperature profile, which is underpinned by microbiological data will provide a practical assessment of the efficacy of critical cool chain processes and steps. The impact of this work will be the identification of potential interventions of critical cool chain steps that can be undertaken to achieve maximum product quality. Based on recent product losses, this project will meet an immediate industry need and also underpin supply of product of consistent quality.

There have been some significant advances in our knowledge of QX disease of Sydney rock oysters in recent years. The pathogen has been isolated from many farming areas without being accompanied by patent disease and the influence of host fitness together with environmental effectors are now being implicated as disease precursors. Nonetheless, the devastating oyster mortalities in the Hawkesbury River this year (2005) highlight our problems in devising intelligent management strategies to minimise the impact of this disease.
A key obstacle to developing knowledge on parameters that control whether a disease outbreak will occur or whether the pathogen remains in estuaries at or beneath detectable levels is the lack of an experimental model of infection. In turn, the development of such a model is predicated on identifying the alternate (i.e. intermediate) host in the lifecycle of QX disease, a stage which is required for the pathogen to viably cycle repeatedly through an estuary. Furthermore, if an experimental model could be identified and later developed, obvious benefit would flow to strategic programs of selective breeding for disease resistant oysters. For example, an experimental model of infection would then provide a consistent and quantifiable challenge to assess the level of resistance in selected stock. Equally, the interactions of oyster immuno-competence and environment could then be assessed in a controlled system without the risk of spatial and temporal variation in QX disease prevalence and intensity that occur in natural estuarine systems.
A successful outcome of this research would have major benefit to our understanding of the biology of QX disease and have direct application to parallel projects aimed at benefitting the industry in both Queensland and New South Wales.

A recent report by the Healthy Rivers Commission to the NSW Government has recommended that areas in estuaries suitable for the cultivation and safe harvesting of oysters should be identified and protected. Sydney rock oyster production in NSW and State wide average productivity (oysters/ha/y) has consistently declined since the late 1970’s despite the introduction of new technologies. The decline is not product demand-driven. Only one of the state’s 30 production estuaries shows an increasing trend in production over the past 10 years. The impact of diseases, acid sulfate soil drainage and the introduction of Pacific oysters into the Port Stephens estuary do not account for the overall decline. One hypothesis is that oyster production is decreasing because of limited food (seston) supplies. Oysters probably make up the largest fraction of the total biomass in NSW estuaries and process most of the primary production. Spatial variation in the quantity and quality of seston could limit cultured oyster growth. Farmers have identified the need to investigate oyster production decline and to identify food conditions required for optimum oyster growth and production. We propose to examine the components of seston, their spatial distribution and origin between oyster farming areas and their dynamics over time. The study will determine the spatial distribution of oyster growth rates in farming areas in response to resource availability and environmental conditions. This information will be used to assess the adequacy of food in estuaries, the identification of areas with optimal oyster growth rates and enable establishment of benchmark oyster growth rates for comparative analysis temporally and spatially. This will contribute to improving farming strategies and to identifying farming areas for protection. Oyster growth and food sources (which are intimately related to the concept of carrying capacities) in estuaries are a high priority in the ORAC 2000-2005 strategic plan.

NSW COMMERCIAL FISHING INDUSTRY
In recent years, the environmental performance of commercial fishing has come under increasing scrutiny, particularly the highly visible fisheries like the NSW estuary fisheries. This trend is likely to continue with the increasing population pressure in NSW coastal areas and greater competing demands on NSW estuarine resources. The fishing industry needs to build community confidence in the way that fisheries are managed in NSW. The recently instituted environmental impact assessment processes and statutory Fishery Management Strategies for the Estuary General Fishery and the Estuary Prawn Trawl fishery are a step in this direction. However, more needs to be done to ensure their widespread adoption by industry, to improve community awareness of the standards and practices by which industry operates, and importantly, to demonstrate that these practices are being employed and the standards achieved.

The project outlined in this application seeks to contribute to this through the development and adoption of Codes of Practice, and in doing so address the need for the development of Codes of Conduct as required by the statutory Fishery Management Strategies, and contribute to the achievement of the broader objectives of the Fisheries Management Strategies. The Codes will provide fishers with regionally-specific guidelines of the acceptable standards, both mandatory minimum standards and voluntary best practice. This will not only facilitate the adoption of acceptable standards across the entire fleets, but will also provide fishers with with a means to ensure that they are operating in accordance with these standards. Furthermore, the regional nature of the Codes will encourage greater ownership by regional fishing communities, and effectively address region-specific issues of concern to local communities.

There is also much interest amongst the NSW fishing industry in third party certification, and in particular Marine Stewardship Council certification, as a means of providing greater assurance to the community and markets. Accordingly, the project will also seek to identify the aspirations and needs of industry in relation to MSC & 3rd party certification, and investigate the options, costs and benefits, and a plan of action for doing so.

NSW OYSTER INDUSTRY
The NSW Oyster Industry does not currently have any unified, industry led environmental management planning. Industry leaders, who see the need for improved environmental practice, are aware that despite their best endeavours, individual initiatives do not receive widespread adoption due to the lack of effective communication, education and incentives.

In response, the Oyster Management Advisory Group established the Ecological Sustainable Development (ESD) Working Group in August 2002. This joint Industry and NSW Fisheries group aims to seek the views and experience of NSW oyster farmers on ESD issues and to lead the strategic adoption of ESD in the industry.

The Ecologically Sustainable Development Working Group has identified a program of initiatives, the first of which is to prepare an industry code of conduct. This initiative will create an opportunity to discuss ESD issues in industry forums; and, will set uniform environmental performance indicators and benchmarks across the industry. Subsequent initiatives will aim to build on the code of conduct to prepare an Environmental Code of Practice and Environmental Management System.

In 1999, Seafood Services Australia (SSA) initiated a risk-based approach to assessing and managing hazards. Regarding oysters, two risk assessments were undertaken, one on viruses and one on vibrios. Focusing on the latter hazards, the risks associated with the three main species: V. parahaemolyticus, V. vulnificus and V. cholerae were assessed. It was noted that V. parahaemolyticus (Vp) has recently caused major outbreaks in USA from consumption of oysters due to a “new” pathogenic type O3:K6. For Australia, no work on pathogenic Vp in oysters could be found, which introduced a great deal of uncertainty to the assessment. The RA noted that there had been two Vp poisonings in NSW from prawns imported from Indonesia, the clear inference being that pathogenic Vp exists in neighbouring waters.

In March, 2002 the FAO/WHO team will develop a global risk assessment of Vp in oysters. The RA will utilise the US risk model and insert data from the oyster industries of Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Japan. If no Australian data are available on levels of Vp the modellers will make assumptions which may well be disadvantageous to the Australian industry. This could happen if the north American mitigation strategy (rapid icing) to control of Vp is adopted as a prerequisite for export.

Failure to input Australian data into a Codex global risk assessment could have serious consequences for the industry. At best it would lead to protracted negotiation between Australia and Codex. These negotiations would need to be science-based and a research program would need to be funded. It is probable that the scale of this investigation would be at least a log scale larger than the present application.

Among the strategies to mitigate V. parahaemolyticus risk is chilling oysters as early as possible after harvest. In the case of the Canadian industry in British Columbia, the strategy has been used successfully in the summers of 2000 and 2001. This strategy is directly opposed to current summer handling practices by the NSW industry which allows product to remain as warm as 25°C for up to three days.

This project is designed to provide evidence of the occurrence and prevalence of pathogenic and non-pathogenic V. parahaemolyticus in Australian oysters. This knowledge will be invaluable to the NSW industry in particular - in case the FAO/WHO assessment recommends chilling of oysters as a pre-requisite for market access.

Effect of not doing the proposed study

If the work is not done and Codex Committee on Food Hygiene (CCFH) recommend a mitigation strategy of rapid icing, the local industry has a number of choices:

1. Ignore the CCFH recommendation on the grounds that we don’t export large volumes of oysters. The problem with this approach is that Codex has just as much application and force for domestic production as it does in the export arena.

2. Undertake a study to try to show that there is no problem with V. parahaemolyticus from Australian product. This would probably be a larger study than the present one and would be mounted to attempt to gain exemption for Australia. It’s always difficult to unwind global hygiene edicts.

The present project, for a relatively modest investment, effectively places Australian data into a global risk assessment. As such the data will have great force in the modelling phase. xbad