Health, welfare, safety and sustainability are crucial elements for ensuring the future of livestock production. Biosecurity aims to prevent the introduction and spread of pathogens within and between farms and, consequently, results in better welfare, increased food safety and better sustainability. In addition, biosecurity measures act as a barrier against the periodic emergence of transboundary diseases.
In the last few years, several studies have described numerous biosecurity measures applied in European farms. These studies reflected differences in biosecurity levels between farming systems and countries. However, the few publications comparing different countries were mostly descriptive without any further analysis about the reasons for this heterogeneity. In addition, most of these studies were conducted in commercial holdings in Western Europe and, therefore, information about other production systems or countries is lacking.
The implementation of biosecurity measures is important in private veterinary practice to reduce the risk of spread of endemic diseases that affects productivity, but it is also important for animal health authorities to combat diseases with high morbidity and substantial impact on animal trade (mainly exotic diseases).
To approach these challenges, the new COST Action Biosecurity Enhanced Through Training Evaluation and Raising Awareness, (BETTER), will evaluate how biosecurity is currently used and will use participative approaches to understand motivators and barriers for biosecurity implementation. The knowledge generated through these approaches will act as the baseline upon which adequate communication and training strategies on biosecurity will be developed.
"There has been a growing interest on biosecurity in the last years, but still our level of collaboration and networking in this field is quite low. BETTER COSTAction should provide us with an ample set of tools to improve communication and coordination and to give a common voice to those in the field (i.e., farmers, veterinarians, traders, decision makers and the general population)" says Dr. Alberto ALLEPUZ (UAB),Chair of BETTER.
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