Livestock Information Programme Update

The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) has, on the 1st October 2019, created a new company called Livestock Information Limited (LI Ltd) to manage the design and implementation of the Livestock Information Service. 

Defra has given LI Ltd the mandate to design and implement the new multispecies Livestock Information Service. As part of this mandate, Defra has agreed to fully fund the statutory service in a way that provides flexibility for any party to invest in further developing that for the benefit of the meat and livestock sectors. 

LI Ltd is a not-for-profit subsidiary of AHDB, in which Defra has a 49% stake. It will work collaboratively with the meat and livestock industry and Government to develop a world- leading multi-species livestock information service for cattle, sheep, pigs, goats and deer to be implemented from late 2020. The service will be enabled to deliver traceability for other species over time. 

The Livestock Information Service is being designed collaboratively with the Traceability Design User Group (TDUG), which represents over 20 trade, education and government bodies in the meat and livestock sectors. 

More effective collection and use of livestock movement can ensure greater resilience and responsiveness to disease and improved food safety. The ability to connect data across the UK meat and livestock sector has the potential to produce on-farm and sector-wide productivity and efficiency improvements. 

The next step for Livestock Information Ltd will be to develop the initial technology platform, recently secured from Shearwell Data. Purchased through a rigorous open procurement competition, this modern, multi-functional platform will give our team the core IT product on which to build the future Livestock Information Service. Shearwell Data will work with SCISYS for software development and support services. 

Livestock Information Ltd has also awarded a contract for the initial phase of the data integration activity to Equine Register, who demonstrated strong integration knowledge and experience of operating in a similar environment to that of livestock traceability. 

Shearwell Data/SCISYS and Equine Register will work with Livestock Information Ltd to develop the platform to deliver a digital livestock sector movement service that puts users first. 

For more information on the Livestock Information Programme 

Contact: [email protected] 

Follow us on Twitter @livestockinform and #livestockinformation