There’s Increased Risk of Animal-Borne Disease in Free-Range Farming, New Study Shows

“Low-yield farms need far more land to produce the same amount of food compared with high-yield farms. A widespread switch to low-yield farming would result in the destruction and disturbance of vast areas of natural habitats. This increases the risk of viral spillover [ie the first transmission from a wild animal] by disturbing wildlife that may well host the next pandemic virus and increasing contact between wildlife, people and livestock,” said Harriet Bartlett, lead author of a new study regarding the relative risks of zoonosis emergence.

Contrary to reports by the United Nationa and other entities that put blame on intensive farming for the outbreak of diseases that come from animals, a team of veterinarians and ecologists at the University of Cambridge and the University of Leeds argued that free-range farming poses a greater risk of emergence and spread of zoonotic diseases.

According to the team, free-range farms usually have poorer biosecurity, more laborers, bigger livestock populations, and larger areas to farm. Should the world shift away from industrial farming, free-range farming will require more tracts of land in order to produce the amount of food that the global populations need.

This means more wildlife habitats will have to be converted, resulting in more wild animals being displaced and in higher exposure of humans to wildlife that may be hosting deadly viruses. Currently, invasion by certain wild animals like bears, coyotes, monkeys, and wild boars has become a serious problem in many cities and urban areas around the world.

Though, of course, the issue of industrial/intensive farming versus lower-yield/free-range farming remains highly debatable.

Another expert, Dr. Guillaume Fournié, an epidemiologist at the Royal Veterinary College in London, stated that supposedly better biosecurity measures on intensive farms were not always an effective defense against the spread of disease.

He cited the recent case in Europe which has to struggle with waves of avian flu outbreaks, making it more challenging to determine what should be the optimum standards for biosecurity and how this gray area may aggravate the problem.

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