The European Commission’s work on drawing up a new livestock strategy is coming close to completion, but Brussels is keeping its intentions for the policy initiative closely under wraps.

Drafting the strategy has entered its “final stages” after months of preparation and consultation, senior Commission livestock official Brigitte Misonne told Tuesday’s Forum for the Future of Agriculture event in the RDS.

Aside from setting out the five areas the new strategy will touch off, Misonne gave little detail of measures other than loose references to backing market differentiation, supporting livestock co-ops and improving the uptake of on-farm renewables.

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These are global competitiveness, sustainability, territorial diversity and a drive for excellence.

From imports to diseases

“What we have seen is that we need a long-term vision for livestock to ensure the sector is crisis resilient – that is one aspect – globally competitive,” the Commission official said.

Misonne said that global competitiveness is here to stay, and allowing livestock farmers better deal with the challenge will come from both increasing their resilience to shocks, whether they come from the market, animal diseases or climate impacts, as well as looking for higher standards from imports.

On sustainability, she stated that policies should encompass environmental, social and economic sustainability that allows the sector needs to find a natural place in its environment.

Attendees heard reference of a need to strike “balance between areas with high concentrations [of livestock] and others where livestock used to have roots in the past but have disappeared”.

Extensification possibility

“What could we think of in the strategy? We could explore on-farm renewable energy production, improved resource use, we could explore better breeding, but also herd management to reduce emissions, and extensification of course is one option that would support biodiversity and carbon sinks.”

The strategy’s aim of achieving territorial diversity is to seek to acknowledge the role of livestock farming “really sustaining rural communities and shaping landscapes”.

“It is a backbone of the social fabric in areas where no other activity is in fact possible,” Misonne said, adding that the strategy could open the door to supports that would aid this activity, naming “co-operative projects” as one of them.

The last pillar of “driving for excellence” looks to address the attractiveness of the sector and ensure “each system supported to the fullest extent” from developing “high value chains to equipping indoor farms with state-of-the art innovation that would reduce emissions and pollution”.

Where did this strategy come from?

The initiative was brought forward by European Commissioner for Agriculture Christophe Hansen, who sounded the alarm last year over declining livestock numbers in the EU and referred to the almost 8% drop in the EU’s livestock over the past decade as a “very threatening trend.”

The commissioner stated there is a need to “slow down or reverse” this downward trend and said that a “common vision” will be developed in a bid to secure the future of EU livestock farming.