The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs are seeking views as part of an eight-week consultation on an updated system to improve the digital cattle registration system.
By law all bovines in England must be registered with the British Cattle Movement Service to allow the government to identify and locate livestock in the event of an animal disease outbreak or food safety incident.
The proposals include the use of new digital technology to remove cumbersome paper processes making the system easier to navigate and less time consuming for keepers. These changes will enable the Government to trace disease more quickly and effectively and help safeguard national public health and food safety. This will also strengthen the UK position in international markets.
This consultation forms part of the wider Livestock Information Transformation Programme, which will replace the existing domestic traceability databases with one multi-species platform. Bovines will have a new database that will make tracing individual animals quicker and easier, which will help to reduce the harm caused by a disease outbreak.
The consultation will run for 8 weeks until 23:59 on 15 November.
For information on other schemes and resources for farmers, see the Growth Hub Farming Resources page here.
