Biosecurity in poultry hatcheries plays a crucial role in protecting flocks from deadly diseases such as highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) and mitigating risk of disease transmission from birds to human. However, owners of small and medium hatchery and parent flock farms in Viet Nam do not commonly practice appropriate biosecurity standards and hygiene practices due to their limited understanding of disease risk, farm management, and low financial capacity to improve their farm infrastructures.

With the financial support from the United States Agency for International Development and World Poultry Foundation, FAO Viet Nam’s Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Diseases (ECTAD) has been closely working with Viet Nam Department of Livestock Production (DLP) to improve biosecurity practices of poultry farms and hatcheries in Viet Nam. We organized trainings for poultry producers and hatchery owners on good farm management practices, guideline of minimum biosecurity standards, and provide on-site consultation service by biosecurity experts. To sustain the success of these efforts, FAO ECTAD Viet Nam and DLP co-organized an advocacy workshop in Hung Yen City to share their lessons learnt and advocate local government authorities to continue the trainings and replicate both hatchery and farm models with good biosecurity standards.

“Increasing biosecurity standards is a cost-effective strategy to improve farmers’ livelihoods and prevent a potential pandemic at the same time. By following these three simple steps: Segregation, Cleaning, and Disinfection, poultry producers in Viet Nam can keep the birds healthy and minimise infectious disease outbreaks in their farms.” said by Pawin Padungtod, the Senior Technical Coordinator of FAO ECTAD Viet Nam.

The leaders of both DLP and Hung Yen Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD) highly appreciate FAO ECTAD Viet Nam’s technical assistance, and they plan to include the training materials, “Good management practices and biosecurity for hatchery and parent flock farms”, developed by FAO ECTAD Viet Nam into DARD’s training programmes.