Negotiating security and resilience: planning conundrums for avian influenza control in Great Britain's poultry...

The outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza in Great Britain between 2021 and 2026 represent the most severe period of virus activity recorded in the country, prompting renewed scrutiny of how biosecurity is conceptualised and practised within poultry systems. This paper examines how the structure of poultry sectors, producing meat, eggs, and game birds, shape disease risk and the possibilities for a resilient poultry ecology. Using a production and distribution network approach, we combine a desk-based review of industry, policy, grey, and published literature with qualitative data from 19 in-depth interviews, supplemented by field visits and engagement in stakeholder events. Our analysis shows that highly integrated and geographically concentrated poultry meat and layer systems interact with wild and semi-wild birds in ways which generate distinct challenges. Concentration of production and processing infrastructure, aging housing stock, consumer demand for free-range, and large-scale releases of game birds impact decisions around poultry governance and questions of risk around avian influenza incursion. We identify two cross-cutting 'entanglements' that condition avian influenza virus vulnerability: (1) poultry planning, where fragmented and often contested land-use decisions interact with environmental and biodiversity policies to shape exposure to wild and semi-wild ecologies; and (2) the insuring of poultry, where a market failure in private avian influenza insurance and uneven and contested state compensation regimes differentially distribute risk across producers and sectors. We argue that farm-level biosecurity, while necessary, is insufficient to secure Britain's poultry production under near-endemic avian influenza virus pressure. A more bio-resilient poultry future will require macro-level, multi-sectoral coordination that integrates spatial planning, infrastructure renewal, and equitable risk-sharing mechanisms for disease preparedness.