Defra is hoping a new eradication programme will help bring porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) under control within 12 years.
The department recently out proposals in a 12-week consultation for a compulsory PRRS control and eradication programme in England that would initially introduce legislation requiring pig herds to test and declare their PRRS status. The consultation also seeks views on plans to make Animal Health and Welfare Reviews mandatory.
The measures would be brought in over five phases, ‘with the aim of reaching eradication in the long term’:
- Phase 1 is designed to establish a baseline antibody status in sows for England.
- Phase 2 moves onto virus testing and sequencing piglets and weaners for the majority of pig farms or units.
- In Phase 3, holdings testing positive for virus would need to start implementing additional control measures, with some restrictions on movements coming into effect.
- Phase 4 would tighten some of these controls, alongside additional measures to stop large pig farms setting up new units, or moving existing units, close to ‘established units’.
- Phase 5 would further tighten some of these measures, including requiring units to have sows and boars testing negative ahead of breeding.
“By the end of phase 5, which will be 12 years into the programme, we hope that PRRS is being successfully controlled,” the consultation document states.
Stewart Houston, chair of the Pig Pathway Group, said the group had always felt that to truly tackle PRRS and move towards eradication, at some point initiatives would need to move from being voluntary to mandatory.
“Just testing and talking to your vet isn’t going to deliver PRRS eradication. There is going to have to be a separate big discussion with industry around pig movements and various other policies in the longer term.
“There are so many factors that spread PRRS – it is going to require an awful lot of collective and coordinated effort to control it. But it’s a huge opportunity if we can pull it off.”
While farmers will start to shoulder more of the financial burden of the Pathway as the Defra-funded elements end, currently planned for 2027, Mr Houston said any extra costs farmers incur will ‘pale into insignificance against the cost of dealing with a PRRS outbreak’.
NPA chief policy Katie Jarvis said there were questions over how the compulsory part of the programme would work.
“Private vets will do the reviews, so the price they charge and their availability will need to be considered,” she said.
“With PRRS testing set to become mandatory in future, producers should consider starting the process now while funding is available, because it won’t once it’s in the legislation.”
Animal Health and Welfare Reviews
Currently, the reviews, introduced in 2023, are voluntary, with pig farmers able to apply for Defra funding (£648) for visits by vets, who will review disease risks and biosecurity, carry out PRRS testing and discuss medicine use and improvements with producers. Farmers can also apply for a funding for an endemic disease follow-up (£1,087) that builds on the review.
Defra is now proposing to replace the voluntary programme with legal requirements which would make it mandatory for cattle, sheep and pig farmers, with 51 or more pigs, in England to arrange a visit from their vet to carry out an annual review.
Farmers would pay for the review. They would have the flexibility to organise the visit ‘at any point in the year that best suits them’, Defra said, pointing out that some assurance schemes accept a voluntary vet visit towards or instead of their vet visits.
Farmers would also be legally required to provide some information on health, welfare and medicine usage to Defra.
The consultation document explains that the change would ‘align with rules in the Animal Health Law under the proposed UK-EU SPS Agreement’.