Food and biosecurity: livestock production and towards a world free of foot-and-mouth disease

Abstract

A key challenge for global livestock production is the prevalence of infectious animal diseases. These diseases result in low productivity in meat and dairy production, culled animals, and significant barriers to trade and lost income from meat and meat products. Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) affects both developing countries, where it is often endemic and very costly, and developed countries where incursions result in considerable economic losses in the order of billions of dollars per year. In some cases, production levels of pork meat in developed countries have still not recovered to levels prior to past disease incursions, more than a decade ago. In developing countries, the export of an..