Cost Sharing Consultation
Uploaded January 2008

The following has been issued by the BPA. It is important that all pig breeders are aware of the issues and therefore the note is reproduced in its entirety.

The government has launched a consultation on Cost Sharing and the BPA will be responding. It will also be helpful if individual members and the clubs respond to this consultation. We have tried before to organise the membership into taking positive action on consultations. Wild Boar was one example. The clubs can obviously help to publicise this issue. You can find the consultation at:

www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/consult/ahw-nextsteps/index.htm

In advance of this consultation industry has been making a lot of noise to raise awareness of the issue but the reality is that cost sharing is coming and will be implemented. I have attached an extract from the Ministers speech to the Future of Farming Conference last month. I have also attached a copy of the report by the Joint Industry Government Working Group published last year which is co-chaired by the Stewart Houston, the Chairman of NPA. Note these documents are not reproduced because of size BPEX which is also chaired by Stewart responded to the report as follows:

"Our preference for the funding of costs from the industry is for a retrospective levy. The pig industry has demonstrated that it can operate such a scheme efficiently when needed within sensible time periods. We also believe that money raised from the pig industry should be used to cover pig-related diseases only. We believe that the pig industry has a generally good record in disease control and eradication and we would wish to see that reflected in

levy arrangements. We see no advantage in accumulating large sums of money from the industry that is left idle. It is far better that the very limited profits that the pg industry makes to be invested in improved bio-security."

You can see from these documents that the issue is WHEN not IF. The government was urged to hold off on publishing the consultation document before Christmas because of the difficulties being faced by the whole livestock and poultry industry at present but they have rejected this advice. Having sown the wind they will now reap a whirlwind of bad publicity but it is unlikely to stop the eventual implementation of the cost sharing agenda. What we have to do is prepare to minimise the impact on BPA members and pedigree breeders. The biggest threat is the suggestion that somehow "hobby farmers" pose the greatest threat to national biosecurity and should therefore pay more towards the costs and it is this area of the debate that we are focusing on.

One of the keys to rebuffing this suggestion is for BPA members to implement Farm Health Plans. It is easy for large scale pig producers to claim that they have good biosecurity because they are members of the Assured British Pigs Quality Assurance Scheme which is based on quarterly veterinary inspections. The cost of quarterly audits is too high for farms with less than 10 sows. We know that our members are taking good care of their pigs and making sure that they do not spread disease. It is obvious that keepers of rare breeds have more to lose than keepers of easily replaced commercial pigs. The problem is how do we prove this to government. It's easy for the farms in the Assurance scheme they just point to their ABP certificate but what can our members with smaller herds do?

One approach is Farm Health Planning. There are lots of reasons to have a Farm Health Plan, the most obvious being that you want your pigs to be healthy. Another significant benefit will be that if government looks to share out costs of controlling disease, breeders with a Farm Health Plan can rightly claim that they are not to blame and should not therefore be penalised with a disproportionate share of the charges.

Over the last two months we have organised a series of Farm Health Planning workshops. These workshops provide breeders with a template suitable for small scale producers who may be showing or exchanging boars for breeding. The template forms the basis of a Farm Health Plan to be developed with your own vet. The workshops have been very useful in developing and refining the template and I would like to thank the clubs who helped to publicise them. All those who did attend were very impressed with Bob Stevenson's presentation. It would have been nice if we had have a better turn out at some of the workshops but in the end workshops alone cannot be the only way to reach 1500 BPA members. Even if we had 50 at each one we would have to run 7 a year just to deal with new members let alone the existing ones.

In the New Year Bob and I will be meeting with DEFRA to see how we can continue this programme. One suggestion is that we try to get funding for another round of workshops organised by the clubs. It is clear that more people would attend a workshop if it was both practical and classroom. The clubs have proved very effective in the past at organising these practical workshops. We will also be looking at other delivery methods booklets, DVD's, websites etc. The Pig Veterinary Society also needs to be involved. Many new pig keepers do not have access to a specialist pig vet and I feel that PVS should address this issue.

There are also plans afoot for workshops at the Smallholders Show in Wales and the Pig and Poultry Fair at Stoneleigh. The latter is keen to bring in small scale pig producers. It was agreed at the AGM last Saturday that we should try and run the programme that had been planned for the Smithfield Show at these events next May. The involvement of the clubs in these workshops is essential and we will be writing to the clubs to invite them to a planning meeting in January.

All this effort is aimed at providing the evidence that BPA members are part of the solution not the problem. BPA members need to agree a Farm Health Plan with their vet and register it with the BPA. Then we can go to government and say that our members have Farm Health Plans, they have biosecurity, they have quarantines. We can then put the ball back in DEFRA's court and insist that they focus on the real threat to national biosecurity which is illegal activity. It was illegal swill feeding that caused the 2001 outbreak and it will most likely be illegal activity that causes the next outbreak. T e correct title for cost sharing is Responsibility and Cost Sharing. We have a responsibility not to introduce and spread disease but the government has a responsibility to clamp down on illegal activity which we know is taking place. I have presented the CVO with photographic evidence of pigs being reared illegally and fed catering waste on a gypsy camp in Milton Keynes, the home of the Meat and Livestock Commission. I will be pressing them for an answer as to what they are going to do about this but when I do so it would be very helpful to be able to say that "We have done our part by implementing our Farm Health Plans what are you DEFRA doing about the real problems".

British Pig Association
Trumpington Mews
40b High Street
Trumpington
Cambridge
CB29LS

Related: www.britishpigs.org