Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to protect rare breeds of UK (a) cattle, (b) sheep and (c) pigs.

The UK has one of the richest native rare breed populations in the world and their importance is recognised at both international and UK levels. We have identified 104 UK native breeds of cattle, sheep and pigs.

To protect our native rare breeds Defra works with the Farm Animal Genetic Resources Committee and the evolved administrations on all rare breed issues, particularly their conservation and sustainable use.

We have:

1. Established an Annual Inventory to provide data on populations of breeds.

2. Published the UK Country Report on Farm Animal Genetic Resources which, in part, outlines conservation plans and priorities for specialist and native breeds.

3. Carried out annual reviews of the lists of Breeds at Risk present in the UK using statistics taken from the Annual Inventory.

4. Created contingency plan guidance for Breeds at Risk in the event of an exotic disease.

Some rare native breeds are also supported through agri-environment schemes. Details on total agreements and value of funding under Defra run schemes, including Environmental Stewardship (HR2) and Countryside Stewardship (SP8) (grazing supplement for rare native breeds), for the years 2015–2018 are:

2015 – 1,454 agreements totalling £2,958,854

2016 – 1,404 agreements totalling £2,832,800

2017 – 1,340 agreements totalling £2,707,668

2018 – 1,310 agreements totalling £2,719,028