A unique animal health planning project can help assure our international trading partners and their consumers and could play a crucial part in the post-Brexit environment, Welsh Government’s Chief Veterinary Officer told Hybu Cig Cymru-Meat Promotion Wales (HCC)’s virtual conference last week.
Leading a session on HCC’s Stoc+ project, which helps beef and sheep farmers in Wales who work closely with their vets on proactive animal health planning, Professor Christianne Glossop emphasised the exciting overall opportunities the scheme offered to farmers in Wales.
“You could either do on-farm health planning as a tick box exercise or you can do, what I believe to be, a proper job - an activity. Make it a living, breathing, planning process, where the farmer and the vet work in a co-production,” she said.
“Include the farm production records; the medicine usage; production costs; the quality of the product; and grading.”
“Take into account whatever it is that’s important to you and the contracts you are fulfilling and identifying areas of concern that you can target. Think about it in a very systematic way; what do you want to tackle first? What is the plan for tackling that?” she said.
“Then there’s the application of the basic principles of infectious disease control; keeping the infection out if you don’t have it; finding it quickly and diagnosing it properly; stopping it getting any worse and then stamping out that infection.”
Christianne Glossop explained why this was all so important currently to Wales’ farmers. “Aside from improving the bottom line and the quality of the product, let’s think about all those trade negotiations as we drop out of the EU and we’re trying to negotiate deals."
“Providing an assurance to our trading partners that we mean business when it comes to animal health is just ever so important. Just imagine what a trade deal advantage it would be if we could show that every single livestock holding in Wales is health planning in that active way, with the farmer and the vet working together - what an important selling point that would be,” she said.
Dr Rebekah Stuart, Flock and Herd Health Executive at HCC, explained to the virtual audience the support structure within the Stoc+ project. “This work builds on the importance of animal health and welfare in improving production efficiency and sustainability.
“The HCC project is bringing together up to 500 flocks and herds from across Wales to enhance health planning, help returns and business development; extend already high welfare standards and increase consumer confidence,” she said.
Stoc+ is a five year project, part of the Welsh Government Rural Communities – Rural Development Programme 2014 – 2020, which is funded by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development and the Welsh Government.