Project

Towards an integrated highly contagious livestock disease control with the cross-border region of the Netherlands – North Rine Wesphalia - Lower Saxony

The entire area of The Netherlands (NL), North Rhine Westphalia (NordRhein-Westfalen, NRW) and Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen, NDS) is a large livestock production area. With an overall population of 40-45 million people, it is also a large consumption area. Both production and consumption of livestock commodities have a large cross-border importance, which is expected to increase further in the near future. Both in ‘normal’ (peace time) conditions (i.e. free of highly contagious diseases such as Avian Influenza (AI), Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD) and Classical Swine Fever (CSF)) and in crisis situations, i.e. during outbreaks of these highly contagious diseases, a mutual cross-border dependency exists. Nevertheless, borders still exist (in routine and peace time conditions) or will be established (during outbreaks and crisis) respectively, particularly between NL and NRW-NDS. This project addresses the issue of the economic impact of these borders. The project focuses, from the viewpoint of livestock policy makers (i.e. the ministries of Agriculture of NL, NRW and NDS), on possibilities to reduce and mitigate the economic costs and consequences resulting from these borders.