Views sought on sharing
responsibility and costs for animal health and welfare
DEPARTMENT FOR
ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS News Release (462/07) issued by
The Government News Network on 11 December 2007
Options for
sharing responsibility and costs on animal health and welfare
policy have been set out in a consultation launched by Defra today.
The consultation seeks views on how the farming industry could be
further involved in the decision-making process for animal health
and welfare, such as during disease outbreaks, and whether this
should be done through existing structures and organisations or
new organisational structures.
The consultation also looks at the principles of how the funding
for animal health and welfare can be shared between Government and
the industry in the future.
Minister for Sustainable Food and Farming and Animal Health, Jeff
Rooker said:
"It is only right that the industry should have a greater
say in how disease is controlled and outbreaks are managed, as
they are directly affected by those decisions.
"The partnership work involved in tackling the recent
Bluetongue outbreak, for example, is an excellent indication of
how Government and industry can work together, with industry
taking on an active role in managing disease.
"We want to reform the current system so that the industry
is central to the decision-making process and contributes to the
costs of those decisions in a fair and transparent way."
The consultation responses will be used to help develop detailed
proposals on responsibility and cost sharing which will be
consulted on in 2008.
The consultation also includes some specific proposals for the
withdrawal or reduction of public subsidies for certain measures
that concern BSE in cattle and scrapie in sheep.
Notes to Editors
1. The consultation document and more information can be found on
the Defra website at http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/consult/foodfarming.htm
The deadline for responses is 15 April.
2 This consultation covers England only. Defra is engaging
closely with other UK Agriculture and Rural Affairs Departments
with the aim of developing common policies that recognise the
challenges posed by animals and their diseases and movements
across administrative borders from livestock enterprises spread
across the UK.
3. The Government first started looking at how costs of animal
disease outbreaks should be financed following the classical swine
fever outbreak in 2000. Dr Iain Anderson's inquiry into the
2001 Foot and Mouth disease outbreak highlighted the need for
sharing disease costs with those involved.
4. The first consultation on responsibility and cost sharing was
launched on December 2006. A UK Responsibility and Cost Sharing
Consultative Forum has also been established, and has influenced
the content of this consultation. It includes representatives from
across the farming and agricultural industry.
5. Key questions that the document is seeking views on include
a. Developing existing structures - ways in which we can develop
sharing of responsibilities by building on existing schemes and
good practice, and further involving the industry in the decision
making process in the field of animal health and welfare.
b. Sharing costs equitably - the principles for how the funding
of animal health and welfare in the future can be shared equitably
between Government, all the livestock sectors, and as appropriate,
ancillary sectors.
c. Funding mechanisms - new arrangements that would better
reflect the balance of the risks, roles and responsibilities of
both the public and private sector interests and incentivise the
right kinds of behaviour.
d. New structures Possible statutory institutional structures to
deliver the changed responsibility and cost sharing arrangements
6. The BSE and scrapie proposals would not affect the controls
that protect public health, which will remain firmly in place.
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