Will the Minister make a statement on the fact that the Wales Animal Health and Welfare Framework does not make reference to specific climate change risks or adaptation actions to manage increased risks related to pests and pathogens for kept animal health?
One of the five strategic goals of the Wales Animal Health and Welfare Framework (WAHWF) is that “Wales has a high quality environment”. The Framework specifically states that:
21. Implementation of the Wales Animal Health and Welfare Framework can make a direct contribution to the green growth agenda. Healthy livestock will help drive the green growth of our rural economies, improving both resource efficiency of production and resilience. The five strategic outcomes reflect the scope of this contribution.
And
22. One example is the contribution made to the climate change agenda. Healthy animals help protect the productivity and production levels of farmers, reduce capital losses, minimise negative trade impacts as well as reducing pollution and CO2 emissions.
The WAHWF recognises that healthy animals, through disease prevention, can lead to reduced GHG emissions and a healthier environment. Plans are future-proofed with climate change in mind – e.g. the Framework derived work on Animal Health Planning, eradicating BVD, improving biosecurity are all key areas of our recent AH+W Framework 2019 implementation plan.
One of the key principles of the WAHWF is “prevention is better than cure”. Recent WAHWF Implementation Plans have Animal Health Planning (AHP) as a top priority. AHP is being piloted on a large scale in sheep and cattle farms throughout Wales by the Wales RDP Herd Advance (dairy) and Stoc+ (sheep and beef) projects. Feedback on these projects has been extremely positive. Our vision is for all farms in Wales to utilise AHP as an essential part of their business, analysing performance data (physical, financial and carbon audit) to identify areas for improvement of animal health and productivity. AHP will make livestock farms more resilient and better able to deal with the consequences of climate change.
We have also ensured that the animal disease surveillance system for Wales and GB has maintained capability and coverage, despite major UK Government budget cuts in 2014. Surveillance is essential for the early detection of treats, including changed patterns of disease due to climate change. We are confident that our surveillance system in Wales is capable of detecting significant changes in climate-related threats to animal health.