BioFundament

Good fish health is of great importance to the Norwegian aquaculture industry and good biosecurity is a prerequisite for achieving this. In the spring of 2022, a top management meeting, where participating aquaculture companies represented approximately 70% of total salmon production, decided to establish a forum consisting of top managers to identify a further common path towards better biosecurity. A framework was adopted that contains specific interim goals and measures throughout the entire production chain from broodstock to slaughter. The work is now being operationalized through regional and subregional groups where industry stakeholders and fish health personnel participate.

The framework with interim goals and measures is expected to reduce the risk of introduction and spread of infectious diseases in the aquaculture industry. To succeed with targeted measures, it is useful to establish a common system to document and evaluate the effect and cost of the aquaculture industry's biosecurity work. The BioFundament project will establish the foundation of a system for evaluating the effect of the aquaculture industry's biosecurity work.

To evaluate the effect of biosecurity measures, several prerequisites must be in place. The first is that one must seek to understand which measures can have which effects; there may be several measures that affect the same outcomes and there may be one measure that has several effects. There are often also factors other than the measures that affect the effect, such as infection pressure and other health conditions.

Next, one must obtain data on measures and effects, if such data is not collected and/or not made available as of today. Before starting, it is important to think through what level of detail it is possible and necessary to collect data at and whether it is possible to collect historical data. Then, one can consider which data should be collected and at what level in time and space, to document the effect of biosecurity work. Biofundament will therefore identify which data it would be appropriate to collect to assess the effect of biosecurity measures.

For data owners to be willing to share their data, they need a reliable solution for data sharing, agreements that protect all parties, and professional reasons for why data should be shared. BioFundament will therefore create a system for collecting, storing, and sharing data on biosecurity measures and biosecurity goals.

Finally, methods are needed to assess the effect of biosecurity efforts. The methods that we develop will be based on traditional epidemiology, but in BioFundament we will supplement the knowledge base with methods based on artificial intelligence and machine learning. Once this foundation is in place, one can start measuring the effect of biosecurity measures and perform subsequent cost-benefit assessments. BioFundament will therefore develop epidemiological methods to assess the effect of biosecurity measures and supplement the knowledge base and methods with, among other things, machine learning/artificial intelligence.