Let me preface this by saying: I am a huge proponent of banning intensive farm agriculture in its current form and probably do not need to list the plethora of negative effects it has, not only on the animals involved, but also biodiversity, emissions of greenhouse gasses and human health, not to even mention their potential to function as breeding ground for possibly zoonotic diseases.
Although this transition away from factory-farmed meats has already begun in many countries with a push for alternative protein, the ban of hen cages in certain parts of Europe, the ban on gestational crates for pigs in Sweden and Norway, along with other small but relevant steps, it is clear that a global pivot away from industrial agriculture isn't yet around the corner. Some argue we should aim to ban industrial animal farming by 2050 and I'd like to be so hopeful.
In the mean time these farms present a huge risk when it comes to communicable diseases.
How factory farming fuels the next pandemic
Factory farms form the perfect environment for breeding pathogens. An enclosure with thousands of genetically similar animals with elevated stress levels, weakened immune systems, close contact with animals under-ventilated conditions, and oftentimes on a consistent dose of antibiotics. It's almost a textbook example of a perfect place for viruses to evolve. Additionally, due to the use of antibiotics, it is the perfect breeding ground for drug-resistant bacteria.
This not only causes outbreaks between animals (of the same species as well as inter species like the spillover of bird flu (H5N1) into dairy cows), but also plenty of chances for transmission between animals andhumans due to handling of animals, animal transport, etc. As well as a chance for spillback into animals, allowing the pathogen to further evolve under the radar. The major player here is influenza. Specifically the spillover potential of avian influenza is being closelylookedat.
Preventing this spread or catching early signs of these diseases could not only prevent the culling of millions of animals and the disruption of food systems but also helps prevent global pandemics. The obvious solution would be large scale governmental regulations and pushback against factory farming. But while we willfully ignore this issue because the world has too big of a meat appetite, there are ways to hamper the spread of diseases in these settings.
The machines have learned this too
Considering the more and more widespread adoption of deep learning models across all industries, it would be surprising if we didn't get to see a similar trend in the animal agriculture industry. It's a part of the ongoing push towards precision livestock farming which aims to offer a real-time monitoring and automation system for farmers. It's aimed towards improving the production, health, welfare of animals and as far as I can tell is unsurprisingly mostly economically driven.
A synthesis paper by Yiting Lu et. al. describes advances that have been made in animal viral disease management. Direct monitoring of communicable diseases consist of two main components:
sensor- and image-based surveillance are the front-runner here in several pain- and disease-detection systems. For swine respiratory health, there are already products on the market that use simple (cheap!) audio monitoring tools ; while biosensors for detection of avian influenza are lookingpromising.
sequence based surveillance can automate lineage, variant and pathogenicity labeling from viral sequences; considerably speeding up the process of hemagglutination tests and manual phylogeny and automatically flagging high-risk strains. This has been done for Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus sub lineages as well as avian influenza virus HA sequences and others. This is mostly in the research phase for the time being, as cost here forms a significant hurdle as well.
Moreover, risk factors can be monitored with machine learning to predict farm-level disease risk and spread and support targeted surveillance. Many technical challenges still remain including unbalanced datasets, the structural and evolutionary complexity of viruses, and the poor cross-species transferability of predictive models before we get to a comprehensive disease monitoring suite, but the foundation is definitely there.
Some thoughts on how this can backfire + technical challenges
Precision livestock farming(PLF) methods have received significantcriticismfrom animal-welfare groups, stating that this could bolster the existence of factory farms under some kind of "disease-prevention-washing" label or will likely increase total animals farmed due to efficiency gains, disregarding the suffering of animals.
I agree. The facts, however, are that right now communicable diseases in farms are causing animals to die, people to die and risk causing another global pandemic. Buller et. al. state that "A combined multi-actor approach that brings together industry, scientists, food chain actors, policy-makers and NGOs is needed to develop and use the promise of PLF for the creative and effective improvement of farmed animal welfare". Not only is this holistic approach currently lacking, but it does not include the discourse around pandemic prevention.
Let me preface this by saying: I am a huge proponent of banning intensive farm agriculture in its current form and probably do not need to list the plethora of negative effects it has, not only on the animals involved, but also biodiversity, emissions of greenhouse gasses and human health, not to even mention their potential to function as breeding ground for possibly zoonotic diseases.
Although this transition away from factory-farmed meats has already begun in many countries with a push for alternative protein, the ban of hen cages in certain parts of Europe, the ban on gestational crates for pigs in Sweden and Norway, along with other small but relevant steps, it is clear that a global pivot away from industrial agriculture isn't yet around the corner. Some argue we should aim to ban industrial animal farming by 2050 and I'd like to be so hopeful.
In the mean time these farms present a huge risk when it comes to communicable diseases.
How factory farming fuels the next pandemic
Factory farms form the perfect environment for breeding pathogens. An enclosure with thousands of genetically similar animals with elevated stress levels, weakened immune systems, close contact with animals under-ventilated conditions, and oftentimes on a consistent dose of antibiotics. It's almost a textbook example of a perfect place for viruses to evolve. Additionally, due to the use of antibiotics, it is the perfect breeding ground for drug-resistant bacteria.
This not only causes outbreaks between animals (of the same species as well as inter species like the spillover of bird flu (H5N1) into dairy cows), but also plenty of chances for transmission between animals and humans due to handling of animals, animal transport, etc. As well as a chance for spillback into animals, allowing the pathogen to further evolve under the radar. The major player here is influenza. Specifically the spillover potential of avian influenza is being closely looked at.
Preventing this spread or catching early signs of these diseases could not only prevent the culling of millions of animals and the disruption of food systems but also helps prevent global pandemics. The obvious solution would be large scale governmental regulations and pushback against factory farming. But while we willfully ignore this issue because the world has too big of a meat appetite, there are ways to hamper the spread of diseases in these settings.
The machines have learned this too
Considering the more and more widespread adoption of deep learning models across all industries, it would be surprising if we didn't get to see a similar trend in the animal agriculture industry. It's a part of the ongoing push towards precision livestock farming which aims to offer a real-time monitoring and automation system for farmers. It's aimed towards improving the production, health, welfare of animals and as far as I can tell is unsurprisingly mostly economically driven.
A synthesis paper by Yiting Lu et. al. describes advances that have been made in animal viral disease management. Direct monitoring of communicable diseases consist of two main components:
Moreover, risk factors can be monitored with machine learning to predict farm-level disease risk and spread and support targeted surveillance. Many technical challenges still remain including unbalanced datasets, the structural and evolutionary complexity of viruses, and the poor cross-species transferability of predictive models before we get to a comprehensive disease monitoring suite, but the foundation is definitely there.
Some thoughts on how this can backfire + technical challenges
Precision livestock farming(PLF) methods have received significant criticism from animal-welfare groups, stating that this could bolster the existence of factory farms under some kind of "disease-prevention-washing" label or will likely increase total animals farmed due to efficiency gains, disregarding the suffering of animals.
I agree. The facts, however, are that right now communicable diseases in farms are causing animals to die, people to die and risk causing another global pandemic. Buller et. al. state that "A combined multi-actor approach that brings together industry, scientists, food chain actors, policy-makers and NGOs is needed to develop and use the promise of PLF for the creative and effective improvement of farmed animal welfare". Not only is this holistic approach currently lacking, but it does not include the discourse around pandemic prevention.