Australian farmers should talk with neighbours about spray drift risks

The Integrity Systems Company (ISC) has advised cattle farmers to discuss with neighbouring properties the use of chemical products and their potential impact on the animals. The ISC is the organization managing vendor declarations for Australia’s red meat industry. Its National Vendor Declaration and Waybill (NVD) requires declaring during the selling process if any cattle have grazed in a spray drift risk area in the past 42 days. The document defines a spray drift risk area as “all grazing land, fodder and forage crops that at the time of the application (of a spray) were within 750 metres downwind of a site treated by aerial application and 200 metres downwind of ground rig treated sites.” The information in the NVD must be legally disclosed to potential buyers and made available to them after the sale. According to the ISC, communication between farmers and neighbours is essential to understand what products are being sprayed near the grazing land and how to reduce potential chemical risks.
Recently, concerns have been raised about spray risk implications by an increasing number of farmers, especially in the Nambucca Valley. Here the rapid development of intensive horticulture farms is seen as a potential threat by many cattle producers, who have discovered their premises are often less than 200 metres from agricultural ground sprayed with chemicals. The Nambucca Valley Council tried to create buffer zones between horticulture farms and grazing lands. Still, its efforts were rejected by the New South Wales Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure. Despite concerns and complaints, the Department of Agriculture said that chemical residues have rarely been detected in Australian beef. The National Residue Survey (NRS) monitoring scheme has screened over 27,000 samples for pesticides and other contaminants between 2019 and 2024, finding only 12 non-compliant with safety standards.