Stewart Houston and pig vet Gemma Thwaites, who have both been instrumental in developing the programme, delivered some useful insight into the Pig Health and Welfare Pathway at the Pigs Tomorrow conference. ALISTAIR DRIVER reports
Support to improve their pigs’ health and welfare is currently available to producers in various forms via the Animal Health and Welfare Pathway, with more initiatives set to be rolled out over the next 12 months or so.
The Pig Pathway has been developed in a partnership approach between Defra and a core group of industry representatives, chaired by Stewart Houston.
The Pig Pathway Project Group group also includes Gemma Thwaites, of the Garth Pig Practice and a Pig Veterinary Society vice-president, and they delivered an overview of what is currently available and what is still to come via the Pathway at the recent Pigs Tomorrow Conference.
“The specific priorities for pigs include improving biosecurity for endemic disease, internally within the farm, but also to prevent the introduction of exotic disease,” Ms Thwaites said.
“Another is to tackle the PRRS virus, which is costing the industry around £52m per year, and this would also have the knock-on, positive effect of reducing antibiotic use. Other priorities include reducing confinement during the farrowing period and keeping tails intact.”
The Pathway will ultimately provide Defra funding for four current and future initiatives:
- Annual Health and Welfare Review – now open to all eligible keepers.
- Animal Health and Welfare Grants – applications opened in March 2023 and close in mid-June.
- Disease eradication and control programmes, focusing, for pigs, on PRRS – from 2023/24.
- Payment by Results – trialling in late 2023.
Annual Health and Welfare Review
The yearly review of animal health and welfare by a vet or veterinary team of your choice became available to eligible pig producers earlier this year.
Fully funded by Defra, Ms Thwaites stressed that the review was ‘not a tick box exercise’ or an inspection of any sort, but was a ‘flexible conversation’ about the farm’s specific health and welfare priorities. It also includes a free test for PRRS.
The reviews are open to farmers with 51 or more pigs who have a Single Business Identifier linked to a CPH registered in England and are BPS eligible.
Defra went down this route in order to keep administration of this new scheme as straightforward as possible, initially, but Ms Thwaites stressed that eligibility would be opened up more widely ‘in the coming months’.
Pig farmers receive £684 to pay for two to three hours of their and their vet’s time and PRRS testing.
Ms Thwaites explained the process:
- The farmer applies online and agrees to complete a review within six months.
- During the visit, the farmer and vet discuss the pigs’ health and welfare, biosecurity and medicine usage, and pigs are tested for PRRS, with up to 30 blood samples taken.
- They agree the most relevant actions for the farm, including discussing animal health and welfare grants.
- The vet produces a written report with test results, other findings and follow-up actions.
- The vet invoices the farmer, who submits the review report and receives funding from Defra.
“A lot of pig producers are already doing a huge amount in this area, but this gives you the opportunity to spend a bit of time with your vet doing something on top of that.
“This is not a Red Tractor test. There is nothing prescriptive that you have to do. You can talk about anything. The only requirement is that you have to test the pigs for PRRS. It is not often that we get this sort of funding in the pig industry, so go out and get it,” Ms Thwaites urged producers.
Animal Health and Welfare grants
There are two main grant streams, one of which is currently available – but the deadline is rapidly approaching.
Equipment and Technology Grants: These grants, part of the Farming Equipment and Technology Fund, are open for applications now, but the deadline is midday on June 15.
Farmers or contractors who keep beef and dairy cattle, sheep, pigs, laying hens or broilers can apply for grants of between £1,000 and £25,000 towards the cost of a list of items that offer improvements in the health and welfare of livestock. There is no requirement to be BPS-registered.
The items, which were selected through co-design with farmers, academics, vets and Industry groups, include:
- Electronic weighing and sorting facilities
- Feed bin weighing equipment
- Electronic sow feeders
- Automatic curtain systems for housing
- Portable loading ramps
- Robot pen cleaners
- Foraging towers.
Defra said that applying for these grants should take no longer than 20 minutes. The grants are competitive, meaning the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) will score applications and allocate funding to those with the highest average score first.
“We recommend that you speak to your vet before applying,” Mr Houston advised. “You can make that conversation a part of your Annual Health and Welfare Review.
“The process is iterative, and we are just starting to talk about what might be in the list for next year. We will modify the list with input from yourselves.”
Infrastructure grants: Part of the Farming Transformation Fund, these will be larger match-funded grants for bigger on-farm projects.
“These are due to open for applications later in the year and will be focused on the cattle sector first, with calf housing. We’ll be looking at options for the pig sector in the next few months for new grant options next year.
“Preliminary discussions have been around flexible farrowing, but we’ll be looking at other ideas too. We want to hear what you would like,” Mr Houston added
Endemic Disease programme
Each sector is focusing on a particular disease and for pigs, it is PRRS. Aiming to launch in late 2023 or early 2024, the programme will offer farmers a range of support to help control the damaging respiratory disease.
“This is where it gets particularly exciting in terms of what we can do for the pig industry,” Ms Thwaites said.
“The tests during the Annual Health and Welfare Review will tell you if a farm is positive or negative, although they won’t necessarily determine if the farm is vaccinated or has wild virus.
“However, it will help us get a national baseline and is a stepping stone to what will come later.”
“The endemic disease programme will potentially provide some more money for much better testing, including sequencing, and working out where the PRRS virus has originated from, how it is spreading around and what we can do in terms of regional eradication even.
“But if we don’t get the uptake from the baseline, then we won’t be able to get to the next bit, so those initial tests are really important.”
She said the final details are still to be decided, with more ‘listening and adapting’ to be done. Asked from the audience if it was realistic to aim for PRRS eradication, Ms Thwaites said this might be possible on a regional basis, but that initially the aim would be to ‘stabilise the virus, so we are not getting waves of infection’.
“We can then move towards eradication. It is theoretically doable if we are all working together,” she said.
Payment-by-Results
This voluntary initiative, co-designed with farmers and vets, will provide ongoing financial support to help farmers with the additional costs of higher welfare production exceeding the regulatory baseline.
The aim is to launch initial offers in late 2023 and, again, the final details are still being developed.
The Payment by Results initiative will include a two-year trial to support farmers to take action to reduce stressors, leading to a reduction in tail-biting.
“The idea is to reward producers for improving the welfare of the pigs by raising them with intact tails. But, as we all know, it is not always easy to keep the tails on,” Ms Thwaites said.
She stressed that there would need to be more discussion on this, given the complexity of raising pigs with tails and all the issues around tail biting.
Summing up, Mr Houston added: “This is a great opportunity to use Defra money to improve the health and welfare of our pigs. The clue is in the title – this is a Pathway. We know we can’t do all of this in two or three years.
“This is a long-term project and we’ve shown in the past the amazing things we can do when we work together.”