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Recent decades have been marked by the emergence of several epizootics (e.g. foot-and-mouth disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy, avian flu) which have highlighted the vulnerability of food systems and public health to these crises transmitted by livestock. Preventing these risks is therefore a major health and economic issue, which depends largely on the preventive measures adopted by farmers. The case of bovine tuberculosis is a topical one in France, because despite its extremely low prevalence (well below 0.1% of herds), the number of recorded cases is constantly increasing. Preventing the emergence of the disease therefore requires the identification of its risk factors, the analysis of farmers' preventive practices and the evaluation of public policies to encourage the implementation of biosecurity.

The issues mentioned raise empirical, methodological and theoretical questions that this research addresses. Firstly, a statistical analysis showed the importance of taking into account bovine tuberculosis as a rare occurrence, in order to avoid estimation bias and to accurately reveal risk factors. The analysis of the propensity of farmers to implement biosecurity measures reveals that their choices are interdependent, both at the farm level and locally. A biosecurity incentive policy, studied by modelling, will be all the more effective if the financial aid is adjusted to the characteristics of each farmer and is conditional on the measures being widely adopted.

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