Biosecurity plays a vital role in sustainable livestock production as it can prevent animal disease outbreaks and act as an alternative to the use of antimicrobials. The ambition of high biosecurity standards is to keep animals healthy, improve animal welfare, and benefit the financial income of the farmer. Although biosecurity on livestock farms is perceived as important and is mentioned numerous times in the “Animal Health Law“ (EU Reg 2016/429) and even in the Terrestrial code of WOAH, implementation of biosecurity measures in the field is lagging. Most European countries have biosecurity measures stipulated in national legislation or national quality labels. However, these imposed measures are often limited and typically focus on limiting epidemic disease outbreaks and not on controlling the challenges related to the daily endemic diseases present at the farms. Moreover, as large differences are seen in the application of biosecurity measures between countries and animal production types, there is ample room for improving biosecurity levels in European countries. This lack of implementation is often attributed to an unclear return on investment for the farm owner. The economic impact and the reduced risk of animal diseases getting introduced onto the farm after the implementation of biosecurity measures are not always apparent. To produce animal protein products sustainably in the future, a systematic shift towards the implementation of preventive actions such as biosecurity measures is pivotal. Not only when the threat of epidemic diseases is high (e.g. seasonal pressure of avian influenza) but also in the absence of clear disease pressure as endemic diseases, which are continuously present, also pose a huge burden on farm animals, causing high antimicrobial use, impaired animal welfare and reduced production yields.

The purpose of this project is to contribute to this.