Equiventus

Your Breed Society needs your support in order to continue the legacy of your breed.

Please take a moment to read our proposal and add your supporting signature to the document.

Following the departure of the UK from the EU, it is likely that there is to be a change in the position of ALL UK-based breeding programmes with regards access across EU Member States, across all farmed species.

The action of the UK leaving the EU, and taking on the role of a "Third Country", means that UK-based Breed Societies will no longer be able to operate breeding programmes within the EU. This is the current plan being actioned by Defra and a subsidiary, Farm Animal Genetic Resources (FAnGR).

FAnGR is currently pursuing approval of all UK Breed Societies who are able to meet with the requirements, under Article 34 of the Zootechnic Regulation (EU) 1012/2016.

From FAnGR's website, it is clear that there are 160 UK breeds, covering cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, poultry and horses, with over 100 of these considered to be "at risk". Only achieving approval under Article 34, as is currently proposed, would see UK Breed Societies unable to register any offspring born within the EU into their UK based breeding programmes. These bloodlines would be lost from UK Breeding Programmes.

Approval of Breed Societies under Article 34 would allow for animals to register with an EU studbook, if they or their germinal products were exported to the EU. This would mean that if a stallion was moved to an EU State for a breeding season, the mare owner would be able to apply to an EU breed society representing the stallion's breed, and use the UK-issued Zootechnic papers to confirm his genetic record.

This is the only involvement a UK Breed Society would be granted under Article 34.

But there is an alternative.

An application under another Article of the same Regulation would see Defra granted approval, rather than the individual Breed Societies, and it is this mechanism which we believe should have been utilised from the outset of negotiations.

I propose that Defra apply for equivalency under Article 35
of the Zootechnic Regulation.

Article 35 states that:

Article 35 would seek to grant equivalence to Defra, the UK's Competent Authority (CA), rather than individually approve each of the Breed Societies. With the CA having been granted equivalence, the trickle-down effect would then see all Breed Societies approved under Article 4, and their respective breeding programmes approved under Article 8. It should also follow that Article 12 could then be applied, with regards extension to breeding programmes. This mechanism for approval would allow Breed Societies to apply to extend their own breeding programmes into EU Territories.

This equivalence would afford the same privileges to Defra and UK Breed Societies as were experienced when the UK was still an active EU Member State.

Equiventus is dedicated to the protection and promotion of UK Breed Societies' valued work and bloodlines. With this in mind, we have drawn up our proposal which would seek to future-proof the next steps of this unprecedented transition from the EU. We would ask you to now PLEASE read our proposal and, if you agree, please add your name to the list of supporters. This list will be shared with Defra when our proposal is submitted for their consideration.

I must stress this is a time-critical application. With the Transition Period deadline approaching, this action needs to be expedited, and the timings are unfortuantely extremely short. I would please ask that you consider our proposal and add your name as a supporter before midnight on 8th November 2020 so that we can prepare and submit the proposal and supporting signatures to Defra.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and our proposal,
Chris Eden
Director, Equiventus

Having now read the proposal, if you are in agreement with it, please take a moment to add your name to our list of supporters.