Intensive farming could raise the risk for new pandemics emerging, a new study led by the University of Exeter has found.
The study, Understanding the roles of economy and society in the relative risks of zoonosis emergence from livestock, which was published in the Royal Society Open Science journal, notes that while industrialised farming is often perceived to lower the risk of zoonotic diseases – those transmitted from animals to humans – through improved control, biosecurity, and separation of livestock, social and economic factors can play a role, and are often overlooked in traditional assessments.
The research finds that the effects of intensifying agriculture are ‘at best uncertain’ and may contribute to the risk of emerging infectious diseases (EID).
Zoonotic diseases
“The COVID-19 pandemic reignited interest in EIDs, especially zoonotic viruses,” commented Professor Steve Hinchliffe from the University of Exeter, and lead author of the study. “The risks of emergence and transmission depend on multiple factors, including contact between humans and animals, and how we use land.
“Livestock farming plays a potentially significant role in those risks, shaping landscapes and providing hosts that can act as the source or amplifiers of emerging pathogens.”
Traditional assessments of such risks focus on microbiological, ecological, and veterinary sciences, however this study emphasises the need to consider social, economic, and political factors.
“Disease is always more than a matter of pathogen transmission, contact and contagion,” Professor Hinchliffe added.
“The founding myth in intensive farming is that we separate livestock from wildlife and thereby shut off the risk of diseases passing between them. But these farms exist in the real world – so buildings and fences can get damaged, wildlife like rats or wild birds can get in, and workers move around. In short, there will always be accidents.
“Once social, economic and political factors are taken into account, the pandemic risk posed by intensive farming is concerning.”
Mixed farming landscape
The paper discusses the expansion of intensive farming and the resulting environmental degradation as factors that can increase EID risks. Intensification can also lead to the creation of a ‘mixed landscape’ with various farming practices and types, which exacerbates EID risk, it adds.
“The result is a far from bio-contained environment,” the authors write.
Co-author Dr. Kin Wing (Ray) Chan added that increasing on-farm biosecurity, standardisation, and efficiency in animal production is “not the panacea’ for achieving a disease-free environment.
Instead, there is a need to reconsider the socio-cultural impacts of intensifying farm animal production on planetary health, environmental sustainability, and animal welfare.
The full study can be found here.
