Generation Y-ine Biosecurity advisor wants every grape grower on the battlefield SOPHIE PREECE
SOPHIE BADLAND knows plenty about frontline border security, after three years working as a quarantine officer at Wellington Airport, aided by a beagle named Fidget. However, New Zealand Winegrowers’ (NZW) new biosecurity adviser is getting a taste for the fight in the field, working with grape growers, associated industries, government, science providers and foreign ports to help guard against incursions that could damage New Zealand’s wine industry. “I know the importance of everyone being on board, as opposed to it being left to the border staff,” she says, a few weeks into her new role. Sophie is working alongside NZW biosecurity and emergency response manager Edwin Massey to educate growers on biosecurity threats and responses, while educating herself on the seasonal rhythm of grape growing. “I am starting to see the big picture now, in terms of how people can support the work being done at
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the border and before things get to the border.” Sophie studied biomedical science at Victoria University, but soon realised that spending all day in a lab was not for her, so went on to train at teachers’ college. She taught high school science and biology for seven years, until she began to lament a whole life spent at school. “I wanted to get in and do something in science in real life - in the field - which was when the quarantine officer job came along.” Her new role has already involved meeting growers and other industry members in Waipara and in Nelson, and attending a workshop at Lincoln University. That involved looking at a tool that evaluates how likely people are to adopt a new initiative, according to the parameters entered. If put into practice, she and Edwin would use the resource to assess the likelihood of growers and contractors putting in place industry-good practices to improve biosecurity outcomes.
Winning hearts and minds is key to the success of the team’s work, so that instead of the industry being reliant on the safeguards put in place at borders, it has an army of biosecurity experts in every vineyard, she says. The biggest risk right now is the brown marmorated stink bug, “not just for the wine industry but horticulture in general”, she says. “It’s the one that is mostly likely to get in and most likely to cause a lot of damage.” She has also been involved in work focusing on Xylella fastidiosa and Pierces disease, including looking at other industries that would be hit by that incursion, and assessing the opportunities for collaboration and resource sharing, “so that different organisations aren’t doing the same thing”, she says. It’s a broad role that Sophie is enjoying, but it’d be even better if she could get a beagle into the vines, she says of her former canine workmates. “I miss them a lot.”
