Definitions of biosecurity typically include generalised statements about how biosecurity risks on farms should be managed and contained. However, in reality, on-farm biosecurity practices are uneven and transfer differently between social groups, geographical scales and agricultural commodity chains. This paper reviews social science studies that examine on-farm biosecurity for animal health. We first review behavioural and psychosocial models of individual farmer behaviour/decisions. Behavioural approaches are prominent in biosecurity policy but have limitations because of a focus on individual farmer behaviour and intentions. We then review geographical and rural sociological work that emphasises social and cultural structures, contexts and norms that guide disease behaviour. Socio-cultural approaches have the capacity to extend the more commonly applied behavioural approaches and contribute to the better formulation of biosecurity policy and on-farm practice. This includes strengthening our understanding of ‘good farming' identity, tacit knowledge, farmer influence networks, and reformulating biosecurity as localised practices of care. Recognising on-farm biosecurity as practices of biosecure farming care offers a new way of engaging, motivating and encouraging farmers to manage and contain diseases on farm. This is critical given government intentions to devolve biosecurity governance to the farming industry.
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December 2020
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Cover Image
Cover Image
The cover of this Emerging Topics in Life Sciences special issue, Biosecurity: tools, behaviours and concepts is a Met Office infographic devised to highlight the role of meteorology in biosecurity as outlined in the paper “Use of meteorological data in biosecurity”. By fusing together multiple forms of science communication, the Met Office hope to expand the reach of science beyond the conventional research community.
Review Article|
September 10 2020
On-farm biosecurity in livestock production: farmer behaviour, cultural identities and practices of care
Damian Maye
;
1Countryside and Community Research Institute, University of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham, U.K.
Correspondence: Damian Maye (dmaye@glos.ac.uk)
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Kin Wing (Ray) Chan
Kin Wing (Ray) Chan
2Department of Geography, University of Exeter, Exeter, U.K.
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Publisher: Portland Press Ltd
Received:
June 08 2020
Revision Received:
August 16 2020
Accepted:
August 18 2020
Online ISSN: 2397-8562
Print ISSN: 2397-8554
© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Portland Press Limited on behalf of the Biochemical Society and the Royal Society of Biology
2020
Emerg Top Life Sci (2020) 4 (5): 521–530.
Article history
Received:
June 08 2020
Revision Received:
August 16 2020
Accepted:
August 18 2020
Citation
Damian Maye, Kin Wing (Ray) Chan; On-farm biosecurity in livestock production: farmer behaviour, cultural identities and practices of care. Emerg Top Life Sci 15 December 2020; 4 (5): 521–530. doi: https://doi.org/10.1042/ETLS20200063
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