FRANCE

France: Minister Annie Genevard launches the Animal Health Conference

Annie Genevard, Minister of Agriculture and Food Sovereignty, launched the Animal Health Conference on January 30, 2025, as she had promised to do last November. All stakeholders in the livestock sector were brought together to collectively commit to defining the health organization of tomorrow, adapted to the new risks exposing livestock farms, in a context of climate change and intensification of global trade.

Posted on Feb 04 ,00:25

More than 200 representatives of the French livestock sectors met on January 30, 2025, at the premises of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Sovereignty, at the invitation of Annie Genevard. Fifteen years after the Estates General of Health (2010), the objective was to conduct a concerted reflection on the French health system, after a year 2024 marked by various crises (epizootic hemorrhagic disease, ovine bluetongue), the continuation of the fight against highly pathogenic avian influenza and the imminent threat of African swine fever.

In addition to this development in the French health situation, there are new threats to which all French livestock farms may be exposed in this context of climate change and the amplification of global trade. In this regard, 2025 could be the year of unprecedented health risks, both due to the extension of the situation experienced in 2024 and the emergence of other diseases in neighboring countries (foot-and-mouth disease, particularly in Germany). It was therefore necessary to reexamine our organizations and our means of control, by favoring an approach more focused on the anticipation and prevention of diseases.

This launch of the Conference is the culmination of collective work that began in December with a broad consultation of the sectors (more than forty contributions), then in mid-January, with the establishment of four working groups (three groups focused on the pig, ruminant and poultry sectors, as well as a cross-functional group) coordinated by government departments, in order to arrive at a shared inventory and lay the foundations for future sector health contracts.

These future contracts will have to provide in particular for the strengthening, on the one hand, of surveillance in livestock farms, by integrating public health issues (one health), and on the other hand of prevention, in particular with the strengthening of biosecurity and the implementation of preventive vaccination campaigns. This project will involve the upstream and downstream sectors and will clarify the roles of all stakeholders, including the State, in the face of different diseases. It will constitute the basis of a renovated French health system around improved governance, financing, the promotion of innovative solutions, while preserving France's food sovereignty. The aim is to finalize these sector health contracts in 2025 for deployment no later than 2026. To this end, specific working groups will be organized throughout the year under the coordination of State services.

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