If you’re involved in hosting a machinery auction, we encourage you to think about how you could proactively help your buyers to fulfil their biosecurity requirements to get their purchases home from your auction.
Here are some tips to help you run a ‘biosecure’ machinery auction:
- Do hold the auction in a location that’s inside a Phylloxera Exclusion Zone or in a state that’s free from phylloxera to allow purchased machinery or equipment to be moved to any other location, while also meeting movement requirements.
- Do ensure all machinery and equipment at the auction site has been moved there in accordance with state biosecurity requirements.
- Do ensure all items in the auction have been thoroughly cleaned of soil and plant material prior to being offered for sale.
- Do consider including a document with each item for sale thatidentifies:
- Any cleaning and/or disinfestation that has been undertaken on the machinery or equipment just prior to reaching, or at the sale site.
- When the machinery/equipment was last used in a vineyard.
- Do consider that some growers will need to move purchased machinery or equipment interstate. Consider how you might obtain this information from interstate purchasers through a registration of interest process.
- Do consider having a plant biosecurity officer present at your auction to assist in processing biosecurity certificates required to move the purchased machinery/equipment interstate. Note that states free from phylloxera (e.g., SA, WA, TAS) require prior notification of movement of machinery/equipment into the state and therefore interstate purchasers need to be made aware of this requirement through the auction process.
- Don’t assume that growers attending your auction are well-versed in biosecurity requirements to get their purchased machinery or equipment home.
- Don’t just provide a link to a biosecurity website and assume the purchasers have the information they need to get their purchased machinery/equipment home interstate.
- Do consider that the effort you put in to assist growers from a biosecurity perspective to get their purchases home, is likely to impact their willingness to purchase at future auctions.