§ Mr. Laurence RobertsonTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement about the future of livestock farming in the UK. [13939]
208W
§ Mr. Morley[holding answer 12 November 2001]: DEFRA's objectives are to create a livestock production sector which is sustainable, competitive, responsive to consumer demands and founded on high animal health and welfare standards.
To ensure sustainability we need to have regard to environmental limitations and market limitations. We continue to argue the case for decoupling EC beef and sheep payments from production to enable producers to align their livestock numbers to the carrying capacity of their land and to the likely markets for their produce.
Better marketing is needed to shorten the supply chain between producer and consumer. This should enable producers to be both more competitive and to respond to consumer tastes.
DEFRA is determined to develop a coherent strategy for the identification and tracing of animals to enable diseases to be tackled more effectively and to ensure consumer confidence in animal products. We are also launching the National Scrapie Plan, which is a long-term programme for breeding genetic resistance to scrapie and BSE into the national sheep flock.