As part of the Sustainable Farming Initiative set out by Defra, you will soon be able to register online for an Animal Health and Welfare Review. This review isn’t to replace health planning but can instead be used to focus on a specific area on farm that will boost livestock performance, and therefore deliver better productivity for you.

What do you have access to? 

Below are just a few examples of what approximate vet time is available in the review funding and what it could be used for. These are just examples and you can work with your vet to identify the area of priority.

It’s worth noting that if you are a mixed farm you have access to each individual pot of funding. That’s quite a substantial amount of funding!

For example, if you’re having recurrent mastitis problems, the dairy funding could be used to investigate why and create an action plan off the back of it.
In addition, if you have sheep (more than 50) you could carry out a parasite control plan.

Why should you get involved?

Through the various Defra webinars we’ve seen, they’ve been very insistent that these reviews will drive future funding. Although not a lot of data will be uploaded following the review, the trends they see across the country will inform grants to come. So the idea is, if you get involved now, future grants and schemes will be more beneficial to you.

Once the funding applications are open (not just yet) you will have to register for the review through the government website. It’s currently only available to
farmers in England eligible for BPS. Once you have done this please get in touch with the practice to book a time and date that works for you.