Wet Market Biosecurity Reform: Three Social Narratives Influence Stakeholder Responses in Vietnam, Kenya, and the Philippines

"The agenda in wet markets is mainly guided by external forces such as the WHO [World Health Organization] but we need to find a voice for ourselves. A lot of research has been done by international groups but because these diseases are endemic with us, we need to make these diseases a priority." (researcher, Kenya)

Wet markets - places where live animals are kept, slaughtered, and sold to consumers alongside fruits, vegetables and/or grains - in Asia were singled out in 2020 as an alleged source of COVID-19 and future global pandemic risk, with calls to close, ban, regulate, and reform them. This study explored biosecurity practices and reform at wet markets during the COVID-19 pandemic across three case studies in Vietnam, Kenya, and the Philippines. The primary aim was to examine how the global rhetoric of wet market bans and biosecurity reforms have been translated into local settings and have impacted communities, food landscapes, and public health responses.

A research team based in each of the three countries conducted the data collection and analysis within that country from June-December 2021. The researchers conducted 60 key informant interviews and rapid ethnographic research in 15 markets, as well as a review of policy documents and online media articles. They identified three contrasting narratives that frame the problem of biosecurity and preferences for reform in ways that emphasise different aspects of health and risk and that reflect different worldviews and interests:

• The first, a human health narrative, questioned global framings about pandemic risk, viewed markets as sources for food security rather than disease, emphasised the need to strengthen the control of endemic diseases, and conceptualised health through the lens of "freshness" rather than biomedical categories. Scientists articulated the need to better implement a One Health approach, although they called for more "authentic collaboration" and maintained that challenges in collaboration include "turfing", lack of funding for collaborative work, poor local ownership, and continued neglect of wildlife and environment approaches.
• A second modernisation narrative approached biosecurity as part of a broader process of socio-economic development that emphasised infrastructural gaps, spatial arrangements, cleanliness, and a conflict between reform and economic interests.
• A third narrative centred on local livelihoods and the tension between local market stakeholders and biosecurity and modernisation efforts. This narrative called into question the appropriateness of certain regulations and policies, including bans and closures, emphasised the importance of preserving cultural heritage, and highlighted the need for collective political action to resist certain veterinary policies. For example, in Kenya, while some civil society groups (e.g., World Animal Protection) do conduct consumer education about food safety, there appears to be little education and engagement with market stakeholders. Kenyan stakeholders believed that this situation reduced compliance and drove clandestine activities in the livestock value chain.

In short, the research in these three country contexts revealed that wet markets are viewed not as risky places that may cause a global pandemic but, rather, as sources of local health, food, livelihood, and social connection. Health concerns were expressed in terms of meat safety and food-borne disease related mostly to gaps in basic infrastructure. Rather than viewing markets as sites of novel pathogen emergence, government officials and national scientists were more concerned about local endemic food-borne diseases and trans-boundary animal diseases such as African swine fever and Avian influenza.

Reflecting on the findings, the researchers note that "Ensuring the health of local food systems, of which wet markets play a central role, is part of a broader struggle between policy ideologies in food systems (e.g. local vs. the global, the small-scale vs. the corporate, the fresh vs. the packaged) and manifested in struggles between grassroots activism, government regulations and the economic centralization of power....There is a need to better understand how local government can strengthen market management and biosecurity in ways that enhance the agency of market stakeholders and strengthen local livelihoods and food security as part of a pluralistic and democratic politics."

They conclude by "encourag[ing] researchers and local government to conduct country-specific evaluations of wet markets conditions and biosecurity practices to better appreciate the diversity of local markets, and to use this contextualized information to better understand gaps and plan for feasible and desirable improvements."