Biosecurity and Risk

Disease is a central factor in the sustainability of the food chain. Animal diseases impact upon perceptions of food safety by consumers; they can affect the livelihoods of producers; and they can impact upon the landscape and the type of countryside consumed and produced. Moreover, the spread and management of disease is simultaneously a social, political and economic event and changes in the distribution of disease are facilitated through global economic networks.

The sustainability of the food chain is threatened by endemic and exotic diseases. On the endemic side, bovine tuberculosis, swine fever and scrapie are all examples of animal diseases impacting upon agricultural fortunes. Exotic diseases, such as foot and mouth disease, avian flu and bluetongue have come to dominate the media’s focus on the nation’s food and state of agriculture.

Regulating the spaces of disease at global and local scales has become an increasingly important challenge facing policy makers, leading us to question: How do policy makers attempt to regulate the spaces of diseases at different scales and with what effect?

In answering this core question, this work package draws on theoretical frameworks such as socio-natures, risk and the sociology of science. The management of research projects are guided by a nominal subdivision of the work into two main streams. The first extends and develops the core teams current research interest of biosecurity. This will be complimented by the foci of the second stream which addresses a wider range of farming system and food-supply chain risk management initiatives, as they relate to disease control.

Research Projects: 

Biosecurity: South West Wales Intensive Treatment Area (2006 - 2008)

Biosecurity and the Regulation of Animal Health (2006 - 2007)

Foot and Mouth (2003)