Biosecurity and Livestock Welfare

Good biosecurity practices protect livestock from infectious disease, reducing the welfare burden of illness and the need for therapeutic intervention.

Key Facts

Disease outbreaks cause significant welfare harm including pain, distress, and mortality in affected animals
Biosecurity measures include controlled movement, isolation of new arrivals, and pathogen-specific protocols
African Swine Fever and Avian Influenza have demonstrated the catastrophic welfare and economic impact of biosecurity failures
Effective biosecurity is increasingly important as global livestock movement and trade intensifies disease transmission risks

Welfare Considerations

Biosecurity is a welfare investment that prevents the suffering caused by infectious disease outbreaks. When biosecurity fails, the consequences are severe — disease spreads rapidly through susceptible populations, causing large-scale suffering and high mortality. The control measures that follow, including mass culling of affected and at-risk animals, impose additional welfare costs. Disease prevention through good biosecurity is therefore a dual welfare benefit: preventing disease suffering and avoiding the welfare costs of emergency culling. Training farm staff in biosecurity principles and building biosecurity into daily routines rather than treating it as an emergency response are the most effective approaches.

What You Can Do

Support livestock welfare standards that include biosecurity requirements
Advocate for farmer biosecurity training as a standard component of livestock keeper education
Choose products from farms certified under schemes with documented biosecurity protocols
Engage with livestock disease control authorities on welfare-conscious approaches to outbreak response