This project brings together experts in animal health, economics, and behavioural science to better understand how farmers make decisions about biosecurity, the steps they take to prevent and control the spread of disease. By exploring the social, economic, and practical factors that influence farmers’ choices, the project aims to identify what helps and what hinders the uptake of good biosecurity practices, and how communication can support better outcomes.

The research focuses on three case studies:

Johne’s Disease (cattle and sheep): The team is looking at the benefits of health scheme membership and other biosecurity measures. They are also creating a decision-support tool to help vets and advisors discuss practical options with farmers and crofters for reducing the risk and impact of Johne’s on their businesses.

PRRS (pigs): Work is centred on understanding farm hygiene practices, economic impacts, and how information is shared. The team is developing communication tools to highlight ways farmers can lower the risk of PRRS and other diseases.

Roundworms (sheep and cattle): In collaboration with colleagues at Moredun and the James Hutton Institute, the project is helping farmers and crofters manage worms effectively and avoid resistance to wormers.

A key part of the research is understanding how farmers perceive risk, testing, and treatment, and how best to communicate messages about biosecurity in clear and practical ways.

The team has also been active internationally, contributing to biosecurity initiatives such as the BETTER COST Action and the UN’s Progressive Management Pathway for Terrestrial Animal Biosecurity. They have presented their work at conferences, submitted publications, and taken part in specialist training, including new approaches like motivational interviewing, to support conversations with farmers about improving biosecurity.

In Year 1, we built the team and developed interactions between its scientific and stakeholder labs, with the other projects in Topic Line D5 (Natural Capital), and with experts and stakeholders. These connections are informing the selection of a pilot area and facilitating the sharing of knowledge to better understand exiting gaps in Natural Capital (NC) valuation, including those revealed from a survey of relevant literature (completed; with new entries to be added, as the project progresses). As planned, with the focus on NC and ecosystem services (ES) of woodlands, we addressed Research Questions on the gaps in NC valuation and the dimensions of value, which require further consideration, by reviewing the literature on the methods-in-use and their application, primarily in Scotland/the UK. 

Main findings from our research are: 
i) The under-representation of subject areas of economics and forestry in the review of 3,415 papers published internationally on the topic. 
ii) Increasing evidence, in Scotland, of landscape scale initiatives that address the relationships between people and place to inform value and decision making beyond the economic benefits generated by woodlands. 
iii) Studies on cultural ES are emerging in the woodland/forestry domain, but more in other contexts, such as the coastal and marine environments.
iv) Innovative methods are of community voice and participatory mapping based on GIS analysis that integrates base maps, including aerial or satellite images.
iv) Opportunities to quantify cultural ES are emerging from analysing of preferences at the landscape level through integrated visual approaches (GIS; 3D rendering) and the implementation of Public Participation GIS (PPGIS), e.g., using touch table techniques. This finding validates the incorporation of participatory , as well as digital and visualization tools in JHI-D5-1 (Bringing in participatory approaches to widen the scope of Natural Capital Valuation) research.
v) Cultural ES are not sufficiently incorporated into decision making to formulate best strategies for land and natural asset management and to maximise the delivery. An opportunity is in the integration in NC valuation of broader values to inform more specific aspects related to woodlands and their ES, and their effects on land uses and land users. 
vi) Natural capital-based instruments and activities have emerged and a willingness by the Scottish/UK Governments to explore alternative conceptualisations of economic success and inclusive wealth. However, high-level policy often fails to produce a trickle-down into secondary policy due, in part, to a lack of regulatory incentives. Consequently, social and institutional innovations on the ground remain uncommon. 
vii) Collective actions, which facilitate joining up thinking and actions across sectors and stakeholders, and the development of links between policy levels and activities, offer credible prospects of pathways to operationalizing what is, so far, a largely conceptual approach. 
viii) Bringing in participatory approaches into NC valuation raises questions around how this might be instrumentalised (e.g., of incentives). The enablement via policy of collective action around NC approaches (specifically in the form of social and institutional  innovations) will form the topic of a scientific paper.

The objectives set for Year 1 were achieved. The project is on track and there is no deviation from the original plan.