Year-round biosecurity starts with boots, easy shed barriers and daily habits, not gates and wheel washers.
Boots first, then concrete, before big infrastructureGillian would spend on staff and visitor boots and a sit-down barrier ahead of wheel washers and gantries, then 15 to 16 metres of concrete where the lorry stands.
The weakest point is people going in and out of shedsAcross more than 300 outbreak sites, everyday shed visits four or five times a day carry the virus in, not strangers, visitors and lorries.
Score the risk, not the security, and prepare before the outbreakEBAS shows a farm as 12% at risk rather than 88% secure, and a filled-in emergency response plan turns a day with the vet into half an hour.
Executive SummaryAI
Gillian Sporio tells host Jack Hughes she set up Live Tech Systems about 15 years ago (founded in 2010 with Gordon Sammet) after nearly 25 years of livestock disease contingency planning since UK foot and mouth and the 2003 avian influenza outbreaks, and the company has pivoted from on-farm depopulations toward year-round prevention it calls Biosecurity 365.
From over 300 outbreak sites, Gillian says the weakest point is individual behaviour going in and out of sheds, because contamination comes from wild birds such as gulls moving 50 kilometers a day and a teaspoon of faeces can contaminate 10,000 birds, so dipping toes in a foot dip is not the answer.
To beat biosecurity fatigue she wants compliance made easier than non-compliance: spend on boots and a sit-down barrier before overhead gantries, lock down control within 10 or 20 metres of the sheds rather than at the farm gate, and her order is boots first, then concrete, with maintenance done in summer rather than October or November.
Biosecurity between sheds matters because a DEFRA vet arrives within an hour and a half and compensation is only available for unaffected sheds, while the laying sector's move from cage to barn units, including 10-tier colony units converted to double-decker barns, heightens the risk.
Lifetech now delivers advice digitally: the EBAS survey scores each farm area and flips it into a vulnerability score (88% biosecure means 12% at risk), the free Livestock Protect app maps zones, wild bird deaths and migration with a curated AI button, and a digital emergency response plan cuts the 40-page APHA veterinary investigation from a day to half an hour.
Key Quote
“a teaspoon of faeces can carry enough virus to contaminate 10,000 birds.”
— Gillian Sporio
Key Quote
“i think part of it is you've just got to get the system right you've got to get it easier to comply than not comply”
— Gillian Sporio
Key Quote
“disease and challenges don't need an invite they just need an opportunity”