Risk Management of Outbreaks of Livestock Diseases

Livestock diseases can severely harm animal and human health, and have adverse economic impacts on producer incomes, markets, trade, and consumers. This paper develops a common framework to improve information on public actions and policies to manage outbreaks of livestock diseases across countries. The main aim is to facilitate the assessment of the effectiveness and efficiency of different policy responses to disease outbreaks. A pilot database covering four livestock diseases (avian influenza, bovine spongiform encephalopathy, classical swine fever, and foot and mouth disease) in nine countries (Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom) was constructed. It combines three layers of data: epidemiological factors; government control and compensation measures; and economic impacts of disease outbreaks. Policy responses to outbreaks were reviewed based on the information generated from the data analysis. The results show that government expenditures to destroy pathogens via slaughter and compensation policy measures were very expensive, especially in the case of large or prolonged outbreaks, and that measures compensating financial losses at the farm level generated the highest share of government expenditures in the short run.