This project seeks to position the NT seafood industry to have a clear understanding of suitable and cost effective, valued systems and processes for adoption. It is the critical first step required to aid a shift in the behaviour and culture from a government driven data collection process for legislative purposes, to a process that is trusted and valued by industry to deliver data insights beyond regulatory requirements. As a result, it will help position the NT wild harvest and aquaculture sectors with securing access, investment and development opportunities.

Current negotiations for access to Aboriginal-owned tidal waters have reached a critical point. A gap exists in understanding what level of industry adjustment might be required to ensure Indigenous investment in the industry is not unnecessarily impacted. Better understanding the full value of the NT seafood industry to the NT community could assist with all strategic decisions related to Blue Mud Bay negotiations, infrastructure investments – and help support investment in the industry going forward.

Without a plan to enhance the visibility of the wider socio-economic value and benefits of our industry, we will continue to face increasing pressure on our social licence to operate – which has the potential to impact all aspects of the local industry, including access, industry structure and increased fees. It will also limit our ability to identify the best opportunities for future growth and sustainability.

Further, there is limited availability of current financial and economic information for our individual NT wild harvest fisheries and sector specific aquaculture activities. Due to this lack of information there is little scope for economic analysis, hence limiting opportunities for providing advice to policy and decision makers.

Total annual production of prawns in Australia in 2016/2017 was approximately 21,000 tonnes, valued at $310 million. Aquaculture production was 4,624 tonnes valued at $85 million and wild harvest production was 20,982 tonnes valued at $310 million. The 2016 WSD outbreak in QLD prawn farms highlighted the need for enhanced biosecurity measures to protect this important industry.

Following the outbreak, the FRDC AAHBS convened a workshop in November 2017 to identify the WSD Research and Development needs of governments and industry to support surveillance, biosecurity and production. The workshop identified a project concept for improved WSSV diagnosis, with a focus on providing capability for rapid on-farm pathogen detection. In farmed prawns WSD can result in 100% mortality within days of infection, making it imperative that farms are able to rapidly identify WSSV and implement emergency control measures.

There are several commercially available POC testing platforms for WSSV, however, there is currently no comparative test performance data to support the use of these WSSV POC tests in Australia for detection of WSSV in clinically-affected prawns. This project will determine the following important information:

• Analytical and diagnostic performance characteristics of three commercially available immunochromatographic WSSV POC test kits.

• Analytical and diagnostic performance characteristics of two commercially available real-time PCR based WSSV POC testing platforms.

• A comparative performance evaluation of the above POC tests to NATA accredited WSSV qPCR assays.

This information is critical for policy-makers, regulators and industry to successfully implement WSSV POC testing on Australian Prawn farms.