The Animal Health Improvement Cycle: piloting support for sustainable productivity and welfare in Wales

The Sustainable Farming Scheme (SFS) is the Welsh Government's future farm support mechanism proposed to start in January 2026. The SFS includes a range of actions to support the sustainable production of food at the same time as addressing the carbon and nature emergency. The Animal Health Improvement Cycle (AHIC) is the flagship Animal Health and Welfare policy within the SFS. The AHIC is a structured veterinary preventive medicine programme using measure, plan, act and review steps to optimise health and production efficiency through managing key animal health performance indicators. Ahead of the SFS, the AHIC was piloted by 22 veterinarians on 58 beef, sheep and dairy farms in Wales. Challenges identified during the pilot included lack of available on-farm data, time constraints for veterinarians and farmers, veterinary capability and difficulties veterinarians had demonstrating their value to farm clients. Key outcomes included provision of further guidance around better selection and definition of metrics at the measure step, practical methods for their capture and planning of appropriate actions to optimise health and productivity. Farmer and vet feedback was positive, 86% of respondents said that they had found being involved in the AHIC Pilot Project either ‘Very Valuable’ or ‘Extremely Valuable’.