The Office of the Chief Veterinary Officer – known as OCVO – is the Welsh Government department responsible for all policy related to animal health and welfare in Wales, which includes disease eradication and associated control strategies.
Priorities
Following the meeting, NFU Cymru President Aled Jones said: “It was great to meet Dr Irvine and to discuss the animal health and welfare priorities for Welsh farmers with him and his team. We are at a time of landmark change for farming in Wales and with Welsh Government placing animal health and welfare at the heart of the new Sustainable Farming Scheme, there is opportunity for us to work together to ensure this is done in a way which works for farmers and rewards our high standards.
"Healthy animals are productive animals with a lower carbon footprint, so we believe supporting the continuous improvement of health and welfare on farm is a sensible use of public money.”
Challenges
“The team in OCVO are responsible for the design of disease control policies and we discussed the challenges posed across the sector from AI to BVD to sheep scab, offering our thoughts on where we could find gains or where lessons could be learnt.
Refreshed Bovine TB Eradication Plan
“With bovine TB continuing to blight the cattle industry in Wales we also discussed Welsh Government’s refreshed Bovine TB Eradication Programme Delivery Plan which was published earlier this year and shared our disappointment that the plan does not offer any progress towards a comprehensive strategy, one that effectively tackles the disease across all its vectors.
"We also discussed the work of our NFU Cymru TB Focus Group, highlighting where we believe changes to policy could be made to offer more flexibility for those farming businesses living under TB restrictions without increasing the risk of disease transmission.
“On behalf of NFU Cymru we wish Richard well in his new role and we look forward to working in partnership with him and his team to ensure our animal health and welfare standards remain some of the highest in the world.”