Obtaining Movement Data

Western Australia—NLIS

The NLIS is managed by Meat and Livestock Australia. Data can be obtained only with appropriate permissions from the data owner, which is the state (or territory) in which the movement occurred. Some states (WA, Victoria and Queensland) maintain their own database mirrors (Hood and Martin, 2008). Because of this it was possible to obtain the data directly from the Department of Agriculture and Food Western Australia (DAFWA). A database query was developed using structured query language (SQL) to extract suitable data fields from the database (Table 4.1). The origin and destination properties are identified in the NLIS by a Property Identification Code (PIC). This code is typically structured as an eight character code, where the first four characters represents the state or territory and

Table 4.1: Data fields obtained from the NLIS database for animal movements in Western Australia.

Data field Description

Tag ID To protect privacy this number was actually the NLIS data-

base unique record identifier, which is not available through any public interface, rather than the animals tag number or RFID chip number.

Source The shire (or state) where the move originated.

Source type The establishment type of the source, such as producer, abat- toir, export depot etc.

Destination The shire (or state) where the move ended. Destination type As for source type

Date of transfer The date that the transaction was recorded in the database— not necessarily the date that the animal moved, but due to legislative requirements likely to be with a week of the move- ment.

Deceased Recorded whether an animals death had been recorded in the system, either by the producer or subsequent to an abattoir visit.

the next level of administrative region, and the last four numbers represent the property number within this administrative region. To maintain privacy, the final four digits of the PIC were dropped during the extraction process, and for this exercise each animal was identified using a unique number (with no relation to the original code) rather than one associated with either the device or the property. Some establishments (abattoirs, lairages, saleyards, showgrounds, feedlots, export depots and agents) have a PIC in which the first four characters relate to the state and type of establishment not the next level of administrative region. In this case the type of establishment was recorded and the location manually matched to the appropriate shire. It may be possible to manually identify these establishments (few shires have more than one abattoir or showground). Movements to interstate locations were coded as a state of destination code, not to the level of the shire.

The data were then imported into a PostgreSQL 8.4 relational database (PostgreSQL Global Development Group, 2010) with the PostGIS 1.5 spatial extension (Ramsey, 2009). A database table linking shires with spatial units (further described in Section 4.2.2) was developed.

4.2. MATERIALS AND METHODS 69 A class of PIC called a Buyer PIC is for livestock buyers (for example, livestock agents or live export buyers) to use until destination is determined when buying from sales. These were accounted for by assigning the PIC to the buyer’s address destination, which may be a metropolitan address, not a property. This may cause some confusion as the animals were not likely to actually be moved to this location, but this only applied to a small percentage (0.093%) of the total set of those records retained for analysis.

Greater Mekong Subregion

Data on livestock movements were collected from a number of sources, including official movement records, import and export permits, checkpoint records, abattoir slaughter records, expert opinion and by discussion with traders.

A number of different methods were trialled to collect this data, including the use of local computer databases, entry into a central database and submission of original paper records (or copies) to a central office.

Initially, livestock movement permit data were entered into a customised local com- puter database by provincial or central office staff after the completion of a training course on the use of the database and the purpose of the activity. This database was developed using Microsoft Access 20032 and was distributed to all staff at the train- ing course. The database was translated into Khmer using old style (non-Unicode) Khmer font sets. Where possible the database provided pre-filled lists and tick boxes to try to reduce issues associated with free entry fields, however some fields (numbers of stock and trader name and contact details) were required to be entered as text or integers. A drop down menu offered the option to re-use traders whose details were already stored in the system.

With a view to a potentially region-wide benefit of understanding livestock move- ments, a web-based interface for animal movement recording was also created3 _to

2

http://office.microsoft.com/en-au/access/ 3

allow the direct entry of animal movement records into an online database. This web application provided a movement entry interface based on the movement permits of both Cambodia and Laos, and included drop down lists of traders, provinces, districts, species and reasons for movement, as well as pop up calendars. The same information was collected as with the Access database, but this approach had a num- ber of important benefits. The process of merging the individual local databases was very time consuming, and almost every individual database file came with its own unique set of computer viruses. The online approach also allowed easy bug-fixing and the ability to make modifications rapidly, such as improved data-validity check- ing, ensured that all users were using the appropriate version. As well, it was fully Unicode compliant, allowing the development of a simple translation system and the opportunity for users to record data such as trader names in the appropriate native script, thus avoiding transliteration errors (and subsequent ‘duplication’ of trader names). Another advantage of the centralised system was the immediate availability of the data, providing the ability to automatically generate reports and maps such as that shown in Figure 4.1.

Unfortunately, although the internet is available in much of Cambodia and Laos, it is much less available in government offices in regional areas. There was some speculation during the early phases of the research that this would change with the roll-out of the FAO TADInfo system, but in neither country did this proceed. This meant the use of the web based system was limited, although likely to improve over time. In the interim, in Laos the web system was installed onto memory sticks, and staff were trained in using the web based system from a local computer. An option in the web system interface when used from memory sticks allowed the staff to export the raw tables into a file in comma separated values (.csv) format that was relatively safe from computer viruses, which could then be submitted to the national office.

Finally, where the above mentioned approaches were ineffective, it was agreed that provinces would just send in their paper copies to the national office in each country

4.2. MATERIALS AND METHODS 71

Figure 4.1: A screenshot showing the capabilities of the online reporting interface to show real-time maps of animal movements based on permit data entered from provincial movement records. In this example FMD outbreak locations during the corresponding period are also shown. Clicking on the arrows opens a further window with a listing of the movements that occurred along that route including date, species and number.

where the staff could enter them. Once these reports were received, they were entered into the online database. Offices that continued to fail to submit reports were individually visited and the available records copied and subsequently entered. The data fields collected are shown in Table 4.2. At the time of data analysis, the reporting system also included reports of other species and commodities (owing to a generic design to allow for potential future expansion), including poultry and meat. As this research is focusing on FMD in livestock, for future analysis only the records pertaining to cattle, pigs, water buffalo and goats were included. The type of pa- per form from which the information was being transferred was not recorded in the original Access database. It was subsequently recognised that some provinces were using other sources of movement data (such as sanitary certificates), and historical data that was entered at a national level included purchasing permits (which were issued by the central office to authorise export to other countries). Although there was a potential risk of duplication (national issue of purchasing permits still required exporters to obtain provincial movement permits) it is unlikely as the earliest pro-

Table 4.2: Data fields obtained from the livestock movement permits database for animal movements in the Greater Mekong Subregion.

Data field Description

Permit ID The number of the movement permit, which allowed valida-

tion of the data entry.

Issuing office The office where the permit was issued.

Trader The name of the trader applying for the permit.

Source country The country in which the movement originated. Source province The province in which the movement originated. Source district The district in which the movement originated. Destination country As for source country

Destination province As for source province Destination district As for source district

Date of movement The date that the movement of the animals was planned - not necessarily the date that the animal moved, but the best approximation available.

vincial movement records captured only date back to 2007, while the purchasing permits mainly included movements prior to 2007. For final analysis, spatial resol- ution was restricted to province level, analogous to the shire level in WA. Details of individuals were de-identified. These data were encoded to match spatial identifiers and allowed geographic representation and comparison of movements from different sources.