Fountain Jake, Hernandez-Jover Marta, Manyweathers Jennifer, Hayes Lynne, Brookes Victoria J
Gulbali Institute, Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, NSW 2678, Australia; School of Agricultural, Environmental and Veterinary Sciences, Charles Sturt University, Locked Bag 588, Wagga Wagga, NSW 2678, Australia.
School of Agricultural, Environmental and Veterinary Sciences, Charles Sturt University, Locked Bag 588, Wagga Wagga, NSW 2678, Australia; Sydney School of Veterinary Science, Faculty of Science, The University of Sydney, Camperdown, NSW 2006, Australia.
Prev Vet Med. 2023 Jan;210:105813. doi: 10.1016/j.prevetmed.2022.105813. Epub 2022 Nov 30.
Effective on-farm biosecurity measures are crucial to the post-border protection of emerging agricultural diseases and are the foundation of endemic disease control. Implementation of on-farm biosecurity measures are contingent on the priorities of individual producers, which can often be neglected for other aspects of the farming enterprise. The on-farm approach to prevention of endemic diseases, like bovine viral diarrhoea virus (BVDV), is inconsistent between farms and it is not realistic to assume that farmers take an entirely normative approach to on-farm decision making. Multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) has been used for disease prioritisation and national disease control in human and animal health; however, it is yet to be used as a decision tool for disease control at the farm level. This study used MCDA to determine the most appropriate biosecurity combinations for management of BVDV, based on the preferences of Australian beef producers. Beef producer preferences were obtained from an online survey using indirect collection methods. Point of truth calibration was used to aggregate producer preferences and the performance scores of 23 biosecurity combinations for control of BVDV based on four main criteria: the probability of BVDV introduction, the on-farm impact of BVDV, the off-farm impact of BVDV and the annual input cost of the practice. The MCDA found that biosecurity combinations that included "double-fencing farm boundaries" used in conjunction with "vaccination against BVDV" were most appropriate for management of BVDV in an initially naïve, self-replacing seasonal single-calving beef herd over a 15-year period. Beef producers prioritised practices that preserved the on-farm health of their cattle more than any other criteria, a finding that was persistent regardless of demographic or farming type. Consequently, combinations with "vaccination against BVDV" were consistently ranked higher than those that included "strategic exposure of a persistently infected cow," which is sometimes used by Australian beef producers instead of vaccination. Findings of this study indicate that the benefits of "double-fencing farm boundaries" and "vaccination against BVDV" outweigh the relatively high cost associated with these practices based on the priorities of the Australian beef producer and may be used to demonstrate the benefits of on-farm biosecurity during discussions between livestock veterinarians and beef farmers.
有效的农场生物安全措施对于新兴农业疾病的边境后保护至关重要，并且是地方病控制的基础。农场生物安全措施的实施取决于个体生产者的优先事项，而这些优先事项在农业企业的其他方面往往会被忽视。农场预防地方病（如牛病毒性腹泻病毒，BVDV）的方法在不同农场之间并不一致，而且假设农民在农场决策中完全采取规范的方法是不现实的。多标准决策分析（MCDA）已被用于人类和动物健康领域的疾病优先级确定和国家疾病控制；然而，它尚未被用作农场层面疾病控制的决策工具。本研究使用MCDA，根据澳大利亚牛肉生产者的偏好，确定用于管理BVDV的最合适的生物安全组合。牛肉生产者的偏好通过在线调查使用间接收集方法获得。使用真值校准来汇总生产者偏好以及基于四个主要标准对23种控制BVDV的生物安全组合的性能评分：BVDV引入的概率、BVDV在农场内的影响、BVDV在农场外的影响以及该做法的年度投入成本。MCDA发现，在15年期间，对于最初未感染、自我繁殖的季节性单产牛肉牛群，包括“双重围栏农场边界”与“BVDV疫苗接种”结合使用的生物安全组合最适合管理BVDV。牛肉生产者将保护其牛群农场内健康的做法置于比任何其他标准更高的优先级，无论人口统计学特征或养殖类型如何，这一发现都是一致的。因此，包含“BVDV疫苗接种”的组合始终比包含“持续感染奶牛的战略暴露”的组合排名更高，澳大利亚牛肉生产者有时会使用“持续感染奶牛的战略暴露”而非疫苗接种。本研究结果表明，基于澳大利亚牛肉生产者的优先事项，“双重围栏农场边界”和“BVDV疫苗接种”的益处超过了与这些做法相关的相对较高成本，并且可用于在牲畜兽医和牛肉养殖户的讨论中展示农场生物安全的益处。
