January 5, 2021

Major trade association in Italian poultry industry joins network to support biosecurity

Unaitalia, the main trade association in Italy's poultry sector, will be part of a network of Italian partners contributing to the Horizon 2020 project, Netpoulsafe, or "Networking European poultry actors for enhancing the compliance of biosecurity measures for a sustainable production."

The project aims to help improve the level of biosecurity in poultry farming through the collection, validation and sharing of support measures in seven European countries, namely France, Spain, Italy, Hungary, Belgium, Netherlands and Poland. It is funded by the Horizon 2020 programme for research and innovation through the Grant Agreement n. 101000728, has a total budget of about €2 million (US$2.5 million), and will be developed in three years.

The poultry industry represents one of the main livestock productions in Europe, with 15.2 million tonnes of meat and more than 7.5 million tonnes of eggs produced in 2018.

However, Italy's poultry sector is susceptible to epidemics, which can have a great impact on the country's economy. Biosecurity is therefore the most appropriate response to prevent the spread of infectious diseases and safeguard the competitiveness and sustainability of the poultry industry.

The project is coordinated by ITAVI (France) and includes 13 other partners from seven EU Member States: University of Ghent (Belgium), ZLTO (Netherlands), University of Life Sciences of Warsaw (Poland), University of Padua (Italy), CECAV (Spain), NAIK (Hungary), ANSES (France), SNGTV (France), INRAE (France), Vetworks (Belgium), EV-ILVO (Belgium), CESAC (Spain) and Euroquality (France).

- EFA News