HPAI and Biosecurity Measures

As part of a larger strategy to control avian influenza, policymakers are contemplating ways of "resturcturing" the poultry sector in developing countries to improve biosecurity.  Since the majority of infections of poultry flocks occur in small ("backyard") farms--the thinking goes--efforts are needed to control the spread of AI in these environments.  Proposed measures include mandating the housing or confinement of poultry and placing restrictions on the markets where poultry are bought and sold. 

This policy brief from the UN Food & Agriculture Organization's Pro-Poor Livestock Policy Inititative (PPLPI) points out the problems inherent in such an approach.  The apparent threat posed backyard farms is due to sheer numbers: there are a lot more small farms than there are large, commercial poultry operations.  In Thailand, for example, small farms account for 20% of the poultry population, but represent about 75% of the total number of flocks.  By contrast, commerical operations (with thousands of birds), account for about 60% of poultry production, but represent only 2% of the number of flocks.  Looking at data from surveillance in Thailand in 2004, the brief points out that, statistically speaking, backyard flocks had the lowest risk of detected HPAI infection (0.05 percent).  The likelihood of detecting HPAI in commerical flocks was 4 times higher. 

This not to say that backyard poultry farming is "safe" and commerical production isn't.  The point is, rather, that policies need take the evidence into account.  Advanced biosecurity measures, like those used in commerical operations (whether in Thailand or the United States), provide no guarantee of safety.  Pathogens can still move into and out of these facilities (e.g., through ventilation systems and disposal of poultry waste).  The prospect of imposing costly biosecurity measures on backyard farmers (who are often poor), then, needs to be viewed with some skepticism. 

And this is the tie in to ethics & social justice that we're trying to focus on here.  One of the principles in the Bellagio Statement was that:

The impact and effectiveness of interventions and policies [to prevent and contain avian and human influenza] need to be evaluated and monitored, especially with respect to prospects for providing fair benefits to, and avoiding undue burdens on, disadvantaged groups, so that corrective adjustments can be made in a timely manner.

Clearly that's important in this instance. As the PPLPI policy brief clearly argues that proposed biosecurity measures (1) may not work and (2) may be costly for farmers who cannot affort to implement them.    

Given the much stronger political influence of commercial interests vis-à-vis smallholder producers there is a clear danger that regulators will opt for ‘easy’ solutions, such as imposing measures to make subsistence poultry production ‘safer’, eg forced housing or confinement of poultry. This will impose very high costs, particularly upon a marginal group of entrepreneurs and household producers and may lead to an overall reduction of HPAI outbreaks, but more as a result of the loss of household production flocks than as a result of enhanced bio-security.   

The imposition of measures which do not significantly reduce the risk of pathogen introduction and spread but place severe economic burdens on society or groups thereof may be politically opportune but is socially unjustifiable. Appropriate social investments to reduce health risk locally and nationally, which draw on the current global momentum for rapid and intensive measures to control HPAI, can have the very significant dividend of improving smallholder commercial viability, a pro-poor benefit that stands in sharp contrast to the displacement effects many of the proposed control strategies threaten to cause.

Disclosure: Two of the authors on the PPLPI policy brief, Joachim Otte (FAO) and Ellen Silbergeld (Johns Hopkins) are members of the Bellagio Group. 

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