Turning threat into opportunity: unpacking how African swine fever affects swine epidemic prevention investment behaviors in China

Major animal epidemics are the primary source of uncertainty and operational risk in the pig industry, posing the most significant threat to producers’ stable operations. Ensuring the continuity and stability of investment in animal epidemic prevention and control is a fundamental measure to mitigate the risk of epidemic outbreaks from the source. Using panel data from 18 major pig-breeding provinces in China (2015–2023), this study employs the difference-in-differences (DID) model and the moderation effect model to examine the impact of African swine fever (ASF) outbreaks on the investment in swine epidemic prevention and control, and clarifies the underlying mechanisms driving changes in pig producers’ investment behavior. The results show that the outbreak of ASF has a statistically significant positive impact on farms’ epidemic prevention and control investments. From the perspective of mechanism testing, public investment in regional biosecurity systems effectively reduces farms’ perceived epidemic risk and self-protection costs by improving regional management capacity, generating a substitution effect for private investment. From the perspective of heterogeneity testing, there is significant heterogeneity in the behavior of farm investment in epidemic prevention among farms of different sizes and in different regions. Based on these findings, we suggest that ASF outbreaks should be framed as opportunities to guide farms in upgrading biosecurity infrastructure. Governments should prioritize public prevention and control systems to share private costs, implement targeted and tiered regional prevention strategies, and deliver tailored support to key regions, thereby supporting the safe and sustainable development of the pig industry.