The disease, which is characterized by high morbidity and significant mortality, combined with its potential for rapid spread, can devastate the pig industries of the affected countries.
Intervention studies in the dairy and pig industries have shown the potential of cognitive-behavioural intervention techniques designed to specifically target those attitudes and behaviours of stockpeople that have a direct effect on animal fear, welfare and productivity.
The size of this giant component relative to the size of the network confirms that the Scottish sheep industry is inter-connected, in contrast, for example, to the commercial pig industries where animal movements are largely constrained within sub-networks [21], [22].
Also, in Belgian pig industries the farrow-to-finish herds were reported to have lower numbers of (farm-to-farm) movements compared to the other types of farms [ 4].
The size of Scottish pig industry is small (total headage < 500,000 in each year 2003-2007 [ 20]) compared to some other European territories, e.g. Scandinavian, German or Dutch pig industries.
African swine fever is one of the most feared infections that can affect pig industries because no vaccine is available and the socioeconomic effect of an outbreak would be serious (1 ).
