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Home > News > New animal movement rules go live
Westminster

New animal movement rules go live

28th Jul 2016 / By Digby Scott

From yesterday until summer 2017, Government's new system for registering land on which livestock is kept will be rolled out. Defra will start contacting livestock keepers to help them move to the new arrangements.

A first batch of individual letters will be sent to livestock keepers affected by the changes this week. The letters will remind farmers of changes to animal movement rules and set out the options available to them. Keepers do not need to do anything until they are contacted.

The changes, originally recommended by Government's Taskforce on Farming Regulation, form part of an on-going programme to boost British food and farming productivity by cutting red tape and the time farmers spend on form filling.

Under the existing animal movement regime, many farmers must report livestock movements to any other land they own or rent beyond a five-mile radius of their home farm.

The reporting automatically triggers a six-day lockdown on the farm during which no animals can be moved. There is a host of different rules for sheep, cattle and pigs under a complicated web of schemes.

Under the new scheme, to be rolled out over the next 12 months, farmers will be able to move their animals around any land they have registered and are using within a ten-mile radius under a single County Parish Holding number without the need for reporting, or standstills.