The vice of biosecurity: tightening restrictions on life to counter avian influenza in Japan

ABSTRACT

Outbreaks of avian influenza spread across political boundaries, and migratory birds are often scapegoated as vectors for the disease. This paper develops the vice of biosecurity to explain the tendency for conventional biosecurity to urge for greater restrictions on life that prove difficult to reverse and at times hazard increasing the risks arising from emerging infectious diseases. Drawing on a case study of avian influenza in Japan, this paper analyses the emergence of avian influenza and biosecurity responses to this disease. Avian influenza enacts a unique disease ecology that officials attempt to control by enforcing borders between Japanese/foreign territory, farmed/wild birds and healthy/infected life. Since facing heavy criticism for its initial responses, the Japanese state developed protocols for the swift testing and culling of chickens at infected farms. The worst season for avian influenza outbreaks occurred in the winter of 2020–21, which coincided with the Covid-19 pandemic. Through the vice of biosecurity, this paper draws attention to the problematic dynamic through which biosecurity measures are continually tightened as a first step in shifting towards a set of a biosecurity practices that are more accepting of the dynamism, diversity and mobility of life.

KEYWORDS:

• biosecurity
• borders
• avian influenza
• chicken
• Japan
• vice of biosecurity

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Between 1961 and 2013, annual per capita consumption in mainland China rose from 3.1 to 57 kg (1700%), in Taiwan from 22 to 77 kg (250%), in Japan from 5.1 to 49 kg (860%) and in South Korea from 3.9 to 62 kg (1500%) (FAOSTAT, multiple years). Calculations were made based on the element ‘Food supply quantity (kg/capita/yr)’.

2 The perimeter was estimated by using the standard chicken shed size of a different Miyazaki chicken corporation that houses 10,000 chickens in a 69 × 9 m structure. The structures on the Kawaminami operations were likely larger since they housed on average over 13,000 chickens.

3 The author translated all quoted dialogue from Japanese to English based on audio recordings.

Additional information

Funding

The author received financial support as a JSPS International Research Fellow (Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University) that aided in the publication of this article.