Small Changes, Big Difference: Practical Biosecurity Lessons from The British Pig and Poultry Fair 2026

By Dr Paul Talling, Biosecurity Advisor

The British Pig and Poultry Fair 2026 was a good opportunity to have some honest conversations about ASF preparedness and what practical biosecurity actually looks like on farm.

I was pleased to join AHDB on the Pig Theatre panel, Three Practical Steps for Protecting your Farm from African Swine Fever (ASF), alongside Chair Katie Jarvis from NPA, Lauren Turner and Francesca Green from AHDB.

One of the big themes throughout the discussion was that biosecurity is often seen as complicated, expensive or something people only properly focus on once disease arrives on the doorstep.

But in reality, effective biosecurity comes down to simple, consistent habits.

During the session, I spoke about how biosecurity in the poultry industry has changed significantly over the last decade because of avian influenza. Producers have had to become much stricter around site access, on farm movements, and separation between areas/buildings because they have seen first-hand what disease outbreaks can do.

The pig sector now has the opportunity to learn from the poultry sector and improve its resilience to disease incursions or spread before ASF or another major notifiable disease forces that change.

One thing I said during the panel was: “Every little step you take reduces risk.”

That could be as straightforward as controlling who comes onto the farm by simply keeping gates closed and locked, Additionally, properly defining the boundaries of your pig unit can significantly reduce the negative impacts of an ASF outbreak on family, staff and the wider farm or associated businesses. Specifically keeping farmhouses, staff accommodation and other non-pig farm infrastructure such as grain stores outside of the boundary of the pig unit is very important.

We highlighted how contingency planning should not be treated just as a paperwork exercise. As described above, physically defining boundaries is contingency planning.

One of the most important points I made was that outbreaks do not just affect animals, they will also have a significant stress (mental) effect on all the people involved, whether they’re farm based or the people that come in to help e.g.vets.

In our experience, the people and businesses that cope best are usually the ones that have already thought through how they would manage in an outbreak situation. They have a contingency plan formulated and recorded that details the practical steps that they will take if an outbreak occurs. This will reduce stress for all involved.

Right at the end of the session, everyone was asked for one thing producers should go away and do immediately.

My answer was simple: buy another pair of wellies.

It sounds basic, but allocating separate footwear, to specific farm areas or buildings is a gamechanger. We know it genuinely makes a difference to overall farm biosecurity. Simply changing boots is an intrinsically more straightforward biosecurity system compared with not changing them and relying instead on disinfectant boot dips where the type of boot, cleaning /disinfection procedure and the maintenance of the boot dip itself and solution are all critical for effectiveness.

Regularly changing boots is as much a behavioural change as it is structural. Making a task easier often generates a behaviour change where the simpler task is more likely be done properly.

Changing boots also linked closely to the conversations we were having on the Livetec stand around our retro fit step over barrier. It has been designed to make the transition between a clean and dirty zone (with boot change) easier and more. Again, making the procedure simpler changes behaviour and reinforces a biosecure routine. Removing inconsistency in the use of biosecurity structures significantly reduces disease transmission risk.

A big thank you to AHDB for the invitation and to everyone who came to speak with us over the two days.

If you’d like to learn more about how Livetec supports farms, feel free to get in touch.