Network of European poultry actors for enhancing the compliance of biosecurity measures for sustainable production

General introduction

European poultry farmers now have a clear "recipe book" to tighten on-farm biosecurity compliance thanks to the European NETPOULSAFE project, which ended in 2024. Within the project nearly 3,500 actors were brought together in France, Spain, Italy, Hungary, Belgium, the Netherlands and Poland (7 major poultry producing countries) to compile, validate and disclose existing and new biosecurity measures in an EU Farmbook. The measures are diverse and sometimes adapted to the local context.

Research approach

Seven national multi-actor networks were established, involving a total of 3,379 people. These included veterinarians, livestock farmers, consultants, researchers, and so on. The measures, collected from both practice and literature, were each analyzed from technical and socioeconomic perspectives. They were also validated, either on pilot farms, or through direct dissemination application to stakeholder groups.

Relevance/Valorisation

Knowledge dissemination was key in this project. This inventory of effective biosecurity-enhancing measures on poultry farms was made known via 50 fact sheets and practice summaries, all collected in 1 handbook, and much more. More than 50 videos & webinars, 25 podcasts, and several technical and scientific articles are available. 7 biosafety MOOCs (e-learning modules) and 1 e-learning for trapping teams have been developed and recorded. These can all be found in the EU Farmbook. They are directly applicable by livestock farmers, advisors (including veterinarians) and policy makers. The practices described are expected to lead to effective implementation and improvement of biosecurity.