At the Royal Welsh Winter Fair in November 2024 the Wales Deputy First Minister, Huw Irranca-Davies, published an updated Scheme Outline for the Wales Sustainable Farming Scheme (SFS). Sustainable Farming Scheme: proposed scheme outline (2024) [HTML] | GOV.WALES
The SFS will be the primary mechanism for future farm support payments for farmers. The scheme promotes actions to be completed on farm that align with Welsh Government’s Sustainable Land Management objectives:
- To produce food and other goods in a sustainable manner.
- To address and adapt to climate change.
- To maintain and enhance the resilience of ecosystems and their benefits.
- To conserve and enhance the countryside and its cultural resources, promoting public access and engagement.
The farm’s veterinarian is an essential and integral part of the Animal Health and Welfare Universal Action (UA) of the Wales SFS. We believe this provides a unique opportunity for vets in Wales to deliver preventive veterinary medicine to their clients.
The flagship policy is the Animal Health Improvement Cycle (AHIC), a continuous process that, with farmer and vet collaboration, will drive productivity and animal health and welfare improvements. The programme is structured to support farmers through vet collaboration and preventive health planning in an annual cycle involving assessment of key health and production metrics, planning measures to improve performance, carrying out actions and reviewing effectiveness.
A pilot project has been underway involving 22 vets and 60 farms in Wales since January 2024 and we have expanded the project in 2025 to involve a veterinarian from each large animal practice in Wales and some border practices. The pilots include bespoke training to equip vets to deliver this new initiative, which will be accompanied by continuing support and quality assurance.
In addition to the AHIC we will support farmer and veterinary co-working to manage the biosecurity risks from incoming animals, and promote Animal Welfare, initially through farmer training and practice of mobility and body condition scoring.
The engagement and enthusiasm of veterinarians is critical to the success of the Animal Health and Welfare aspects of the proposed scheme. We will continue to work closely with the farm vets servicing farms in Wales to enable them to seize this unique opportunity to deliver productivity, health and welfare gains on their client’s farms.
