The characteristics of the farm and the farmer that affect the adoption of biosecurity on smallholder poultry farms in Indonesia

Abstract

Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) is endemic in most provinces in Indonesia. Its presence in the country since 2003 has provided the impetus for the Indonesian Government (GoI) to encourage the adoption of biosecurity in smallholder broiler and layer farms. In order to identify cost-effective biosecurity for these farms it is first necessary to identify the biosecurity activities already adopted and the reasons behind this level of adoption. This paper identifies the biosecurity activities already adopted by farmers, and the farm and farmer characteristics that influence this adoption. This paper develops the discussion of how to measure adoption and then use these measures as dependent variables in identifying the factors that influence adoption. The dependent variable is an aggregated Biosecurity Control Score which ranks and aggregates farmers' adoption of 44 Biosecurity Control Indicators. The analysis identified that older, more educated farmers with larger families are more likely to adopt better biosecurity in layer and broiler farms. On layer farms, farmers with fewer non-poultry sources of income will have better biosecurity. The farm characteristic that may influence biosecurity adoption in both layer and broiler farms is farm area. In broiler farms the number and average capacity of farms are also important.