Market instruments, biosecurity and place-based understandings of animal disease

Neoliberal approaches to managing animal disease use Market Instruments (MIs) to promote biosecurity citizenship amongst farmers. MIs create risk-based trading markets that make disease risks visible, and establish and reward appropriate farming practices. However, for other policies the use of MIs is often context dependent and related to farmers' existing values and practices. This paper considers how different spatial imaginations of disease and place attachment amongst farmers modifies the meaning of disease control MIs. Using the example of bovine Tuberculosis in New Zealand, the paper examines its Risk Based Trading scheme known as ‘C status’ designed to limit the movement of cattle. Drawing on qualitative interviews in a farming community in the West Coast, the paper shows how farmers accept the legitimacy of C status to create biosecurity citizenship. At the same time, farmers recognise different spaces of disease risk that vary according to landscape and climate, farming practices, and cattle genetics: factors not recognised within C status. These absences, together with farmers' attachment to place, and their adaptive plans to live with disease, can minimise the significance of MIs

Relational distance, neoliberalism and the regulation of animal health

Using quantitative and qualitative data, this paper contributes to debates on the uneven geographies of neoliberal animal disease regulation. Specifically, the paper analyses the impacts of neoliberal reforms to animal disease regulation in Great Britain. Focussing on the case of bovine tuberculosis (bTB), the paper analyses how changes to ‘relational distance’ in animal disease regulation have led to closer relationships between regulators (veterinarians) and regulatees (farmers) which in turn has led to a departure from standardised disease regulation to approaches that emphasise greater flexibility and judgement. The paper presents quantitative analysis of bTB testing data revealing the gradual erosion of government control of bTB regulation and significant variations in disease diagnosis between vets in the private and public sectors. Drawing on interviews with senior veterinarians in Government and veterinary organisations, the paper shows how these regulatory structures evolved and came to be accepted despite their limitations. The paper concludes by considering how relational distance contributes to an understanding of the nature of disease and its implications for the wider regulation of animal disease

Public attitudes to badger culling to control bovine tuberculosis in rural Wales

This paper examines public attitudes to wildlife control to prevent the transmission of disease between wild and farmed animals. In Great Britain, there has been considerable controversy amongst farmers, the public, scientists and politicians over the role of badger culling in the management of bovine tuberculosis. This paper examines public attitudes to badger culling in rural Wales, the reasons why culling is rejected and/or accepted and the level of trust the public place in different organisations responsible for badger culling. Variations in public attitudes between areas of differing degrees of rurality and disease incidence are analysed. Results indicate moderate levels of support for badger culling, but respondents do not believe the current scientific evidence on the effectiveness of a cull is acceptable. Respondents in rural fringe areas and low disease incidence are more likely to favour badger vaccination. The results have implications for future policy and methods of communicating wildlife control policies to the public

Navigating veterinary borderlands: 'heiferlumps', epidemiological boundaries and the control of animal disease in New Zealand

This paper analyses the importance of boundaries in the control of animal disease. On the one hand, establishing geographical and disciplinary boundaries is seen to be vital to the control of disease. In practice, however, boundaries are unstable, disrupted and frequently transgressed. Disease and its diagnosis vary in space, whilst disciplinary boundaries between epidemiology, laboratory and clinical practices can collapse from the noncoherence of disease. Drawing on the concepts of ‘disciplinary borderlands’ and fluid space, the paper analyses how uncertainty over disease diagnosis establishes a veterinary borderland in which disciplines are merged and combined and difficult to tell apart. From archival research and interviews of key informants, the paper describes the history of the control of bovine Tuberculosis (bTB) in New Zealand. Focussing on disputes around the diagnosis of bTB in the West Coast region, the paper shows how the problem of non-specificity (locally referred to as ‘heiferlumps’) undermined attempts to impose a universal version of disease and control policy. In this new veterinary borderland, attempts to manage the noncoherence of disease shifted from denial to viewing disease as a moral problem in which farmers’ own knowledges were central to the definition and management of disease. In doing so, boundaries between traditional disease disciplines were broken down, and new hybrid veterinary practices established to create geographically variable disease control rules and procedures. In conclusion, the paper considers the wider consequences for the management of animal disease arising from greater farmer involvement in animal disease managemen

Regulating animal health, gender and quality control: a study of veterinary surgeons in Great Britain

This paper explores the validity of performance management regimes for quality assuring animal health regulation by comparing the results of tests for bovine tuberculosis (bTB) between male and female vets. In doing so it hopes to present some practical solutions to the regulation of animal disease and encourage further sociological study of the veterinary profession. Concerns about the quality of animal health regulation by vets have prompted thinking about the role of quality control mechanisms such as performance management systems and performance indicators. To investigate their suitability, bTB testing data from areas with high incidence of bTB in Great Britain were extracted from the Vetnet database. Using the data, a performance indicator ‘reactors per 1000 cattle tested’ was calculated and compared with veterinarians' gender. Results showed statistically significant differences between gender and vets' reactor detection: male vets were more likely to detect animal disease than female vets. The paper considers how the concepts of ‘emotional labour’ and ‘relational distance’ may explain vets' behaviour. The presence of these systematic biases raises questions over the use of performance indicators as means of quality control, and highlights the need for further social scientific analysis of the veterinary profession

The local universality of veterinary expertise and the geography of animal disease

This paper explores the concept of local universality in relation to the regulation of animal health. Protocols have come to play an important role in medical practice, standardising diseases and the expertise required to identify them. Focusing on the use of protocols to identify bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in England and Wales, it is argued that the decontextualised expertise inherent to protocols comes unstuck in practice. Using ethnographies of two veterinary practices, the paper instead shows how forms of situated veterinary expertise emerge in response to practical contingencies, thereby enacting different ontological versions of bTB. The development of these skills stems from the relationships that organise bTB testing as well as through informal work-based modes of learning. Although these practices vary from place to place and depart from the bTB testing protocol, it is variation in practice rather than uniformity that effectively allows the protocol to work. In conclusion, the paper discusses how the management of animal health may be assisted by a flexible rather than uniform approach to disease and veterinary expertise

The ecological paradox: social and natural consequences of the geographies of animal health promotion

Drawing on the example of bovine tuberculosis (bTb), this paper examines the geographies of animal health promotion. Using theories from the sociology of health, the paper outlines how the spatial practices of animal health promotion have had adverse policy consequences – what the paper refers to as an ‘ecological paradox’. Analysis of ethnographic interviews with 61 farmers in England and Wales provides a range of reasons why farmers do and do not implement biosecurity. Drawing on the concept of lay epidemiology and ideas of ‘the candidate’– that is, the terms by which someone/thing is most likely to suffer from a particular illness – the paper shows how farmers construct farmers, cattle and badgers as likely to be a candidate for bTb; and how aspects of luck and fatalism are significant elements of candidature. These effects are traced to a clash of spatial practice within the different knowledge articulated by official attempts to promote animal health and farmers’ understandings. In failing to consider these cultural understandings of disease, the paper argues that the state's attempts to promote animal health have served to reinforce the explanatory power of candidacy and traditional understandings of bTb, thereby overriding attempts to promote biosecurity. The resulting negative consequences for badgers, cattle and farmers are defined as the ecological paradox

Farmers' Decision Making on Livestock Trading Practices: Cowshed Culture and Behavioral Triggers Amongst New Zealand Dairy Farmers.

Studies of farmers' failure to implement biosecurity practices frequently frame their behavior as a lack of intention. More recent studies have argued that farmers' behaviors should be conceptualized as emergent from farming experiences rather than a direct consequence of specific intentions. Drawing on the concepts of "cowshed" culture and the "Trigger Change Model," we explore how farmers' livestock purchasing behavior is shaped by farms' natural and physical environments and identify what triggers behavioral change amongst farmers. Using bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in New Zealand as a case example, qualitative research was conducted with 15 New Zealand dairy producers with varying bTB experiences. We show how farmers' livestock purchasing behavior evolve with culture under a given farm environment. However, established cultures may be disrupted by various triggers such as disease outbreaks, introductions of animals with undesired characteristics, and farm relocation. While dealing with economic and socio-emotional impacts posed by triggers, farmers reorganize their culture and trading behaviors, which may involve holistic biosecurity strategies. Nevertheless, we also show that these triggers instigate only small behavioral changes for some farmers, suggesting the role of the trigger is likely to be context-dependent. Using voluntary disease control schemes such as providing disease status of source farms has attracted great interest as a driver of behavioral change. One hopes such schemes are easily integrated into existing farm practices, however, we speculate such an integration is challenging for many farmers due to path-dependency. We therefore argue that these schemes may fail to bring their intended behavioral changes without a greater understanding of how different types of triggers work in different situations. We need a paradigm shift in how we frame farmers' livestock trading practices. Otherwise, we may not able to answer our questions about farm biosecurity if we continue to approaching these questions solely from a biosecurity point of view