UAE poultry farm premises ID and biosecurity

Investments in the poultry production sector in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), in addition to the ultimate responsibility of protecting the country's natural resources, made it urgent to develop a premises-identification system to identify local, commercial poultry production units in the country. To that end, a corresponding barcoding standard was developed to track diseased birds and contaminated poultry products back to the original farm/flock, as well to potentially exposed birds that have moved from the subject premises. This is the first step toward potentially establishing a national/regional system to accurately map and identify poultry production unit premises and farms, and to monitor and provide an emergency response mechanism in case of a biosecurity alert.