Quantitative Understanding of the Decision-Making Process for Farm Biosecurity Among Japanese Livestock Farmers Using the KAP-Capacity Framework

Abstract

In a globalized world, the frequency of transboundary livestock infectious diseases is increasing, and strengthening of farm biosecurity is vital to stabilize food production. The aim of this study was to understand the decision-making process for farm biosecurity among Japanese livestock farmers. Postal surveys using structured questionnaires were conducted on beef, dairy, pig, and layer farms in Hokkaido and Saitama Prefectures, which represent the principal production area and peri-urban Tokyo, respectively, as well as randomly selected broiler farms across Japan. The question items included the attributes of farms and owners, disease experiences, related associations and sources of hygiene information, attitude toward hygiene management, and compliance with the Standards of Rearing Hygiene Management (SRHM). The compliance rates were compared between livestock sectors. Univariable analyses were conducted using combined data from both prefectures, with the compliance rate as the outcome variable and the questionnaire items as explanatory variables, in generalized linear models. Exploratory factor analyses were conducted using the variables with p < 0.2 in the univariable analyses. The factors identified were classified into knowledge, attitude, capacity, practice, and structural equation modeling (SEM) was performed. The questionnaires were completed and returned by 97 and 66 beef cattle, 86 and 136 dairy, 67 and 45 pig, 20 and 39 layer farmers in Hokkaido and Saitama Prefectures, respectively, and 95 broiler farms. The compliance rate was significantly higher among broiler farms (88.9%) compared with the other sectors, followed by pig (77.1%), layer (67.2%), dairy (63.8%), and beef (59.1%) farms in Hokkaido Prefecture, and layer (64.9%), pig (60.0%), dairy (58.5%), and beef (57.6%) farms in Saitama Prefecture. Based on SEM, the decision-making process from greater knowledge to higher attitude, and from higher attitude to greater compliance with the SRHM were significant ( p < 0.01) in all sectors. Higher capacity was significantly associated with higher knowledge in dairy, pig,break and layer farms ( p < 0.01), and with higher compliance in beef, pig, and layer farms ( p < 0.05). These results suggest that the provision of targeted hygiene knowledge to livestock farmers and the support to smallholder farms would improve biosecurity through elevated attitudes and self-efficacy.

Estimating the Economic Impact and Assessing Owners' Knowledge and Practices of Epizootic Lymphangitis in Equine Cart Animals in Central and South Gondar Zones, Amhara Region, Ethiopia

“…This is in line with the finding reported by Scantlebury et al ( 6 ), in which cart owners who had a direct exposure to SPANA trainings were better in both knowledge and practices toward EL management and hygienic measures to prevent the disease. A positive relationship between knowledge and practice of animal owners was reported by other researchers for other diseases ( 29 , 31 , 32 ). This indicates that there is a room for improvement of animal owners' good practices related to EL by increasing the level of knowledge of animal owners through knowledge transfer intervention, which was found to be effective in increasing knowledge of working equids owners ( 33 , 34 ).…”

Knowledge, attitudes and biosecurity practices among the small‐scale dairy farmers in Sylhet district, Bangladesh

“…Unfortunately, there was no reliable official data available regarding the number of small-scale dairy farms. However, we were able to locate 37 small-scale dairy farms in the Sylhet Sadar region that were oper- Turkey (Can & Altu g, 2014;Makita et al, 2020). The questionnaire had a total of 30 questions and we divided the questions into 4 sectors -…”

“…The farms act as a source of several pathogenic microorganisms which can cause animal and human health risks (An et al., 2018 ; Castells & Colina, 2021 ; Stein & Katz, 2017 ). Infectious diseases cause severe economic losses to farms as well as result in dissatisfaction among farmers, veterinarians, consumers and different stakeholders (Makita et al., 2020 ). In Bangladesh, there is a high risk of infectious disease spread such as foot and mouth disease (FMD) (Youssef et al., 2021 ).…”

Animal health and food safety risk assessments

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