Growing up on her family’s 500-head farrow-to-finish sow farm in Illinois, Jacqueline Springer understands and appreciates the importance of biosecurity and the challenge of maintaining consistent day-to-day compliance.
To explore better ways to provide objective, actionable feedback to producers and farm employees at the farm level, Springer, a veterinary student at the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine, set up a study to evaluate how continuous monitoring and targeted feedback could influence behavior. She discovered that camera-based monitoring, when paired with targeted feedback, can drive meaningful and sustained improvements in biosecurity compliance.
Cameras and Compliance
“Traditional biosecurity monitoring relies heavily on periodic onsite inspections by veterinarians or production managers,” she explained at the 2026 American Association of Swine Veterinarians Annual Meeting. “While these visits provide valuable assessments, they capture only snapshots of farm operations during inspection windows, potentially missing violations between visits.”
In addition, the “announced” nature of many inspections often leads to temporary compliance improvements that may not reflect day-to-day practices, she adds. Not to mention these visits take time and labor required, which are always a premium at any operation.
“Cloud-based security camera systems have created new opportunities for continuous biosecurity monitoring,” Springer says. “These systems provide objective surveillance of critical control points where biosecurity protocols are most crucial. Motion-triggered recording allows efficient review by focusing human attention on periods of activity rather than hours of empty facilities.”
Still, questions remain about the thoroughness of footage review, consistency of violation detection and whether identified violations lead to meaningful improvements in farm practices.
Objective Feedback Works
Springer evaluated camera-based biosecurity monitoring in two commercial 6,000-head sow farms. Over two 28-day periods, before and after a targeted management intervention, she reviewed motion-triggered footage from five critical access points.
“I compared my findings to those of the third-party auditing service reviewing the same footage to evaluate detection consistency,” Springer explains. “I also assessed whether feedback reduced violations and documented the time and resources required to implement this approach in a commercial setting.”
For six to eight hours per day, Springer monitored these two sites. She admits this exceeds what most production veterinarians could dedicate while maintaining other responsibilities.
However, several approaches could improve scalability: intensive review periods (one week per quarter) rather than daily comprehensive review, distributed video review among multiple personnel with coordinated standards, integration of artificial intelligence-powered violation detection to automatically flag potential violations for verification, or sampling protocols using random selection of time periods or locations.
“Integration of AI systems could provide real-time alerts rather than retrospective review, enabling immediate intervention,” Springer notes. “Additionally, integration of camera monitoring data with other production data could provide comprehensive insights into biosecurity effectiveness and its relationship to herd health outcomes.”
During the 28-day baseline period, she documented 245 total violations across both farms. Following a management intervention, violations in the 28-day post-intervention period declined to 69 total violations.
“After a single data-driven intervention, violations decreased by 71.8% across both farm,” she says. “This suggests that objective feedback, not just written protocols, plays a critical role in changing day-to-day behavior.”
Springer believes this research provides producers with a data-driven approach to identifying compliance gaps at critical control points, such as employee entry, live animal load-out areas and supply entry zones.
Does It Add Up?
Economic considerations for implementing camera-based monitoring systems include both initial and ongoing costs. Installation costs for cameras and Wi-Fi infrastructure on 6,000-head sow farms range from $10,000 to $12,000. Ongoing expenses for maintenance, camera system access and weekly third-party auditing services based on the standardized training protocol cost approximately $1,150 per month, or $13,000 to $14,000 annually per farm.
“These costs must be weighed against the potential financial impact of disease outbreaks,” she says.
Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) alone costs the U.S. swine industry $1.2 billion annually[JS1.1], so Springer says even preventing a single disease introduction could justify the monitoring investment for a production system over several years.
“By addressing these gaps early, producers can reduce the risk of disease introduction and spread,” she says. “Preventing a single outbreak, such as PRRSV, could justify the investment in monitoring for multiple years, making biosecurity not only a herd health priority but also a sound economic strategy.”
This project highlights a shift from periodic, reactive audits to continuous, proactive compliance monitoring. As technology advances, particularly with the integration of artificial intelligence-assisted review, Springer believes camera-based monitoring could become a scalable tool that strengthens biosecurity culture across the swine industry.
“Ultimately, protecting herd health starts with consistent daily behaviors, and this research reinforces the value of measurable feedback in achieving that consistency,” she says.
Springer says study limitations included the camera outage demonstrating that monitoring is only effective when cameras function reliably, requiring prioritized maintenance and rapid repair protocols. Protocol refinements during baseline monitoring improved relevance but complicated interpretation of baseline results. The learning curve for monitoring personnel should be anticipated when implementing these systems. Farm-specific violation patterns support the value of individualized feedback and training rather than generic systemwide interventions.
