Farm biosecurity: what's required of cattle producers
Biosecurity is one of the pillars of the red meat integrity system, and for LPA-accredited producers it isn't optional: every property needs a documented Farm Biosecurity Plan. Here's what the plan has to cover, the practical habits behind it, and how to keep it current instead of writing it once and filing it away.
From 1 September 2026, producers seeking LPA accreditation or reaccreditation will need to upload an On-farm Biosecurity Management Plan for each property associated with their LPA account.
Holding a plan is no longer enough on its own — it has to be lodged against your LPA account, per property. Integrity Systems gives you two ways to do it: use the free online tool in your LPA account, or upload a copy of an existing plan that covers the required elements.
And if you've already uploaded one: check it and update it if necessary. A plan uploaded years ago that no longer matches how the property runs is exactly what an auditor will pick up. Source: Integrity Systems — Biosecurity.
LPA requires a documented biosecurity plan
To meet LPA, each Property Identification Code (PIC) must have a formal, documented Farm Biosecurity Plan, and you must be able to produce it if you're selected for an LPA audit. It's the evidence behind the health and traceability declarations you sign on every NVD. One useful shortcut: if you already hold a biosecurity plan for another program (for example JBAS) that covers the same elements, you don't need to write a separate one for LPA.
What the plan must cover
An on-farm biosecurity plan exists to minimise the risk of infectious disease being introduced to the property and spreading. It has to address three areas:
- Livestock introductions and movements. Manage and record stock coming onto and leaving the property so every mob has a known health status — and so a disease can be traced if one turns up.
- People, equipment and vehicles. Control who and what comes onto the property to limit the risk of contamination being carried in on boots, tyres or shared gear.
- Animal health. How you monitor your livestock and manage disease on farm, so it's caught early and contained.
The habits behind the plan
A plan is only worth the practices it describes. The core ones for introduced stock:
- Ask for an Animal Health Declaration with incoming cattle so you know their health status before they arrive.
- Inspect new arrivals for signs of ill health or disease as they come off the truck.
- Isolate them from your herd for a minimum period before mixing them in.
- Record the movement onto the PIC so it can be traced if needed.
- Inspect your own cattle regularly so anything unusual is caught early.
Meeting the September 2026 upload without doing the work twice
The new requirement creates an obvious trap: you fill in ISC's online tool, and now the authoritative version of your biosecurity plan lives on their site — separate from the records that actually prove it. Next year at reaccreditation you're re-keying it, and in between, the uploaded copy quietly goes stale while the property changes.
Because Integrity Systems accepts an uploaded copy of an existing plan, there's a better way round it. In Tagline the plan is structured, live data — held against the property on the official LPA-06 On-Farm Biosecurity Management Plan template, section by section, including the Queensland declaration for QLD PICs and the J-BAS section for cattle where they apply.
- Keyed once, in one place. Your herd composition, stock-introduction procedures, risk sites, treatment and vet records already live in Tagline — the plan is built from them rather than retyped into a second system.
- One click produces the official LPA-06 PDF, filled from your data and named per property. That's the file you upload to your LPA account — you're uploading, not re-entering.
- Per property, which is exactly what the rule asks for. The requirement is a plan for each property on your LPA account. If you run multiple PICs, each one holds its own plan and generates its own document.
- It never goes out of date. Because it's live data rather than a document, the plan tracks the property as it changes. When reaccreditation comes round — or when ISC asks you to check and update what you've already uploaded — you review and regenerate instead of rewriting from a three-year-old Word file.
To be clear about the boundary: Tagline produces the completed official plan; you still upload that file to your LPA account yourself. There's no automated submission into ISC — but you never key the same detail twice, and the version you upload is always the current one.
Keep the plan alive, not filed away
The most common problem isn't writing the plan — it's that it gets signed once and never revisited, so by audit day it no longer describes the property. That's precisely what the September 2026 "check your plan and update" instruction is aimed at. A plan generated from live records makes the annual review a check-and-sign rather than a rewrite.
Biosecurity also doesn't stop at your front gate. Tagline pulls national biosecurity alerts straight from the DAFF feed, automatically, every day, into your alert register — so an emerging outbreak, movement restriction or pest incursion reaches you without trawling government websites. Staying on top of what's happening off your place stops being another job on the list.
Further reading
Authoritative sources to consult before relying on anything in this guide:
- Integrity Systems — Biosecurity — the LPA biosecurity requirements and plan template.
- MLA — Farm biosecurity — producer-facing biosecurity planning resources.
- Animal Health Australia — on-farm biosecurity and disease-management programs.
This guide is general information for Australian producers, not formal compliance advice. Always check current requirements with Integrity Systems and your state legislation.