Simpler animal movement rules designed to reduce red tape for livestock producers has been announced by Defra.
The launch of the rules for livestock keepers to register land they use was announced by Farming Minister George Eustice.
Under existing rules, 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 6 day lockdown – or ‘standstill’ – on the farm during which no animals can be moved.
There is also a host of different rules for sheep, cattle and pigs under a complicated web of schemes, including the Cattle Tracing System Links and Sole Occupancy Authorities.
The new scheme, being rolled out over the next 12 months, has a more simple design to ensure farmers are able to move their animals more freely.
Defra says it will start contacting livestock keepers to help them transition 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 these changes to animal movement rules and set out the options available to them.
'Overly complex rules and regulations'
Farming Minister George Eustice said farmers often face 'overly complex rules and regulations'.
"Making it simpler for them to understand what they need to do will not only help them follow the rules," Mr Eustice said, "but it will also improve disease control capability by ensuring better information on animal locations is being recorded on Defra’s livestock location database."
The changes, originally recommended by the Task Force on Farming Regulation, form part of the government’s on-going programme to boost UK food and farming’s productivity by cutting unnecessary red tape and the time farmers spend on excessive form filling.
