P.PSH.1320 - Final Report

Summary

ParaBoss is the national authority for sheep, goat and cattle parasite control in Australia, providing information on parasites and their control through its suite of products – WormBoss, FlyBoss, LiceBoss, and TickBoss. The resources are a source of detailed information and regional programs developed to improve on-farm management of worms, flies, lice and ticks. ParaBoss is owned by Australian Wool Innovation (AWI), Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA), the University of New England (UNE), and Animal Health Australia (AHA) has been a partner in this project. 

Phase III of the ParaBoss project (2021–2024) AHA delivered on the below two components: 
1.    Website management 
2.    Producer communication, extension and adoption delivery.

Objectives

The goal of ParaBoss Phase III was to enhance and support the profitability and sustainability of Australia’s sheep, goat and cattle producers through the delivery of effective, independent, accurate and objective advice on best practice management of parasites.
All project objectives have been achieved. The project enabled the ParaBoss assets to work together to continually reinforce the value of each element to the producer, guiding them to ‘what’s next’ as they bring ParaBoss into their production processes. Over time, each interaction with current and potential ParaBoss users has guided them towards beneficial behaviour change and adoption of best-practice management strategies.

Key findings

•    Increased awareness and use of ParaBoss as a producer resource through an updated website platform evidenced by consistently outperforming baseline quarterly targets of reaching 15,000 users per quarter and achieving 25,250 page views. 
•    ParaBoss content is technically accurate this is achieved by consulting a technical lead to review project outputs and significantly condensing 1,700 pages of technical information into the current 855 web pages, bringing eight separate sites into one home.
•    Increased knowledge and intended practice change through a combination of targeted extension activities and a producer-centric website and communications 5783 registered webinar attendees, with an overall satisfaction rate of 8.66/10. 58% of webinar attendees indicated an intention to do something differently as a result of attending a webinar.
•    97% of webinar attendees reported learning something new or the webinar reinforcing their existing knowledge.
•    Delivery of nine pilot producer workshops to 62 participants at five sheep pilot workshops and 56 participants at four cattle pilot workshops.

Benefits to industry

Industry has benefited from improved knowledge and understanding of key parasite management practices that pertain to their livestock business. Industry benefits and providing tangible practice change opportunities have been key to all outputs of the ParaBoss project.

Future research

Future recommendations include gaining full access, to all the tools, tool prioritisation and upgrades as well as some known website-related updates that will be required shortly, for example, the rescheduling of Diazinon products. 
In addition, the development of additional workshop materials and the continuation of monthly ParaBoss webinars is recommended.