Livestock health and welfare strategy 2025 to 2030

Current challenges and opportunities for livestock health and welfare

Threats from climate change and trade

The challenge of climate change for the livestock sectors is both on adaptation and mitigation. Climate change has altered the potential of vectors such as mosquitoes, midges and ticks to transmit infections (as increased temperatures allow the viruses to replicate in these intermediate arthropod hosts). The involvement of wildlife in disease spread and establishment in new areas have also become increasingly evident as we have learnt from ASF transmission in European wild boar and the global movement of avian influenza along migratory bird flight pathways.

Climate change combined with movement of people and goods, particularly the continuously changing routes and growing quantities of trade in animals and products of animal origin (POAO), brings the threat of both long and short distance movement of new infections. Recent movements into Europe have included African horse sickness, FMD, ASF, LSD and new serotypes of bluetongue. These and other diseases pose a threat to animal health and welfare in Scotland despite the significant physical distance from the sources of new and emerging infections.

Importation of exotic disease through illegal personal imports of POAO poses a major biosecurity threat to Scotland’s livestock sector.

To mitigate this risk we must ensure that the appropriate sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) controls are in place at our borders. We must also continue to promote compliance by education and robust communication of disincentives alongside the use of detection mechanisms including detector dogs and technologies.

Ultimately these threats may lead to a serious widespread animal disease outbreak, the emergence of a new zoonotic infection, the widespread manifestation of antimicrobial resistance, or the next pandemic. This threat is recognised for animals, humans and plants by the UK biological security strategy, which provides an overarching strategic framework to protect the UK from significant biological risks.

A significant component of preventing damage as a result of disease incursions will be early detection, by provision of veterinary surveillance to identify new and emerging diseases. SRUC Veterinary Services provide national veterinary disease surveillance for the Scottish Government and contributes to UK surveillance through collaboration with APHA in disease monitoring and statutory disease control schemes. This is a key part of the UK-wide animal disease surveillance system, designed to detect and monitor emerging and endemic diseases in livestock and wildlife. Other relevant work includes participation in a National Biosurveillance Network (NBN) and the APHA-coordinated GB Wildlife Health Partnership.

Our policy and technical response to the COVID-19 pandemic have raised awareness among the public and media of the need for planning our responses. In preparation for this, it is imperative to ensure that Scottish Ministers have the appropriate powers to put in place requirements for both disease prevention and control in the face of rapidly changing and threatening circumstances.

Changes in land use, livestock farming practices and the threat of antimicrobial resistance

Over the coming years, the ways in which livestock is kept in Scotland is likely to alter in response to the objectives set out in the Vision for Agriculture. However, the precise impacts on each livestock sector remain uncertain, as they will also be affected by market signals and individual business decisions.

Despite this uncertainty, livestock farming with good levels of animal health and welfare can make a beneficial contribution to biodiversity and soil health, as well as to farm profitability and environmental impact. While good health and welfare are sometimes viewed as a cost to the business, it is well established that they generally improve farm efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions’ intensity. The Code for Sustainable and Regenerative Farming (a ministerial obligation under the Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Act 2024) will set out how certain practices that are good for health and welfare can be advantageous.

One example is the use of ruminant manure and poultry waste on land. Provided that guidelines are followed, their addition to soil through grazing or spreading can improve soil nutrients, structure and biota. As advised by bodies such as the Sustainable Control of Parasites (SCOPS) and the Control Of Worms Sustainably (COWS), to maximise efficacy and reduce the risk of drug resistance, soil health can be supported through the targeted use of anthelmintics and the conservation of dung beetles.

Loss of biodiversity and poor condition in the uplands due to environmental pressures, habitat fragmentation and land management issues have been highlighted in the Scottish Biodiversity Strategy to 2045. Parts of the uplands are grazed by domestic livestock as part of Scotland’s tradition and heritage. Here good animal health and welfare could contribute to production efficiency, which in turn could help reduce stocking densities, thus helping biodiversity to thrive.

Livestock in open extensive systems like the Scottish uplands may suffer from welfare problems due to bad weather conditions, predation and distance from access points that reduce the opportunity to conduct thorough management practices. Reduction of ‘black loss’ of livestock in the Scottish uplands would be of significant benefit to welfare and to businesses and would improve emissions intensity.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global concern which poses an urgent threat to human and animal health, due to the risk of antimicrobial treatment failure. Further efforts are needed to prevent the development of resistance to antimicrobials that are used in both livestock production and for human health. The adoption of preventative approaches and targeted treatments has led to a decline in the use of antibiotics in livestock production over the past ten years, as presented in the UK Veterinary Antimicrobial Resistance and Sales Surveillance (VARSS) report. To continue this focussed effort, a successful pilot in Scotland collecting data on antimicrobial use from ruminant veterinary practices has demonstrated the feasibility of a national roll-out.

Alongside this, we continue to facilitate policies and practices in the livestock sector, such as disease control pilots, that encourage preventative approaches and avoid the need for antimicrobial treatment where possible. In this way, animal health and welfare will continue to contribute to the implementation of the National Action Plan for antimicrobial resistance.

Diversity of livestock businesses

The livestock sectors in Scotland are highly variable in their level of vertical integration and lengths of supply chain. Each varies significantly in scale, from very small-scale keepers to medium and very large scale enterprises. This variation brings differences in approach and decision making.

Each sector faces its own challenges, including supply chains, haulage and transport logistics, weather conditions, and both endemic and exotic disease threats. A common feature to all enterprises however is the need to maintain robust biosecurity and protect their existing assets.

A further set of challenges has arisen for many since the EU Exit, including changes to the flow of goods for import and export, uncertainty over external markets, and an additional threat that cheaper goods will be imported as a result of new trade deals. Now that relationships with the EU are being actively renegotiated, further uncertainty may restrict focus and investment in animal health and welfare, precisely when such attention is more necessary than ever.

Many livestock enterprises rely on external specialists, such as feed merchants, farm business advisers and veterinarians to provide expert advice on specific aspects of farm operations, diversification opportunities and new markets. They often play a key role in helping livestock businesses respond to evolving policy landscapes, adapt to environmental challenges, and adopt innovative practices that support long-term resilience and competitiveness. Their input is particularly important when it comes to promoting animal welfare while ensuring biosecurity is maintained and improved across the production system. This highlights the importance of continuing to maintain robust biosecurity at farm level and throughout the supply chains to safeguard what we already have in Scotland and strengthen our national food security.

This can be achieved by continuing encouragement, education, information and collaboration at all levels of the sectors, including government. Significant players in this approach will be private veterinarians and the Scottish Government-funded Veterinary Advisory Service (VAS), Farm Advisory Services (FAS) and the future Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation System (AKIS) supported by all players in the sectors.

Effective disease prevention and control, as well as food safety, require that detailed information on the location and movements of livestock are available so they can be traced. This requirement drove the development of a Scottish multi-species database and associated online registers, such as the Scottish Kept Bird Register (SKBR) and the equivalent systems under development in other GB administrations. Work is ongoing to further unify datasets across administrations to provide a complete database that can be used to facilitate domestic trade, support regulatory and enforcement bodies and for reassurance to trade missions.

Opportunities in animal health and welfare

Several of the challenges listed above could be addressed through increased use of technology, digital transactions and sharing of data through the supply chain – facilitated by the introduction of bovine electronic identification (EID) and the Scottish multi-species database system. For example, data sharing could allow further declarations of health status at point of sale, while automated transmission of individual animal weight and grade data could support decision-making in breeding programmes.

Coordination of local and national health and welfare initiatives should be possible alongside improved ease of record keeping on farm. These types of steps would help to enhance efficiency of production, building on tools like MyHerdStats and the Scotch Potential Eligibility Checker (SPECC).

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) could also play a role in improving efficiency of farm practices. A Scottish Government-funded project, led by SRUC and Moredun Research Institute, is looking at developing a biosecurity advice tool that uses AI to search and summarise official documentation on animal biosecurity, delivering tailored guidance to help reduce the risk of different livestock diseases on farm.

Scotland benefits from a strong and well engaged veterinary, livestock and environmental science base. New knowledge and technologies are generated and translated into policy and practice. However, it is helpful to remember that research is inherently non-linear and outcomes cannot be guaranteed. Continuous engagement with end-users in government and industry assists researchers in targeting their efforts and ensure effective translation of research findings and outputs into real world impact.

Evidence and analysis are available from a variety of sources to assist with the assessment of change and the development of new policy. These sources include:

• Scottish Government Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services Division (RESAS), including their Agricultural Statistics Hub
• Scottish Government Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture (ENRA)-funded Strategic Research Programme
• The EPIC Centre of Expertise on Animal Disease Outbreaks

Supporting and engaging farmers and policy officials with targeted research programmes on livestock health and welfare provides collaborative capacity to develop suitable data techniques for analysis, modelling and simulation applicable to infectious diseases that can inform policy. Maintaining and participating in research capability that contributes to the detection and investigation of biological threats, as well as the rapid development of diagnostic tests or therapeutic interventions, provides vital and novel solutions for disease prevention and control.

Analytical evidence provides part of the picture. Nuanced information and intelligence is equally important in maintaining our knowledge of changes and events that may alter diseases or welfare of livestock. Scotland benefits from a longstanding network of government, industry, and professional contacts. These connections are a key strength in both established and emerging areas which may be less accustomed to government intervention, but where strong trading and social networks already exist and continue to support innovation and collaboration.