 Today is another good day for Ivan Purnamateja, a medium-sized egg producer in the Indonesian province of Lampung. He has harvested a fresh batch of healthy eggs, which are in high demand among consumers. All thanks to the three-zone biosecurity protocol developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations that helps maintain very high hygiene standards on his farm. According to Ivan, implementing the three-zone biosecurity protocol for his flock of over 80,000-layered chickens was the best decision he has made in his two decades as an egg farmer. Improving the hygiene and safety practices on his farm using the FAO guidelines also helped Ivan obtain the veterinary control number or NKV certification issued by the Indonesian Ministry of Agriculture. NKV certification is a stamp of food quality and safety and essential for accessing new lucrative markets including domestic supermarkets and export markets. Since 2005, NKV certification has been mandatory for slaughterhouses and food distribution businesses. The NKV certification ties in well with the FAO's three-zone biosecurity initiative, which was originally launched in 2012 to contain an outbreak of deadly avian flu. The pandemic killed hundreds of thousands of birds and led to millions of dollars in losses for farmers all over Southeast Asia. Indonesia's poultry industry is the key sector of the national economy. The three-zone biosecurity protocol aims to reduce infection by ensuring proper isolation, traffic control, cleaning and disinfection of poultry farms. Under the protocol, the livestock area in the farm gets divided into three zones, namely red or high risk, yellow or moderate risk, and green or low risk. Vehicles and footwear from outside the farm are placed in the red zone. In the yellow zone, special footwear is used and farm workers must take a shower and wear protective clothing. When they enter the green zone, they are required to wear special footwear and sanitize their hands and feet before coming into contact with the birds. While the FAO team provides the technical inputs, the investment in building the infrastructure required obtaining protective equipment and other materials is borne by the farmers. We in Indonesia have been doing cost-effectivity studies and we found out that if you do TIGA zone biosecurity that there is a positive return on investment if you compare it to the investment cost. An FAO study of broiler production conducted over a two-year period found that seven farms which adopted the three zone biosecurity measures earn an additional US$45 for every 1,000 birds. Currently, poultry farms in 14 provinces are implementing the FAO protocol. This unique partnership between FAO, government agencies and farmers also has a special public health benefit, a reduction in the use of antibiotics in the poultry industry. The overuse of antibiotics in food production leads to antimicrobial resistance, one of the top 10 global health threats according to the World Health Organization. TIGA zone biosecurity or three zone biosecurity also reduces the need for antimicrobial use on farms because the chickens are not getting sick. So actually it's in line with the global action plan and the national action plan for AMR control. FAO three zone biosecurity project in Indonesia could be a simple but effective model for lowering the use of antibiotics in poultry farms especially when combined with food safety certification such as NKV that attract farmers to adopt biosecurity measures voluntarily. Other countries should emulate the same kind of TIGA zone biosecurity because it's easy to understand for farmers and it's easy to implement, it's cheap and it will help to improve their production and to reduce antimicrobial use on farms.