2015-10-22
National Audit Office: endangered farm animal species are almost unprotected
Although livestock breeding in Lithuania is a priority agriculture sector, the audit of the development of the farm animal breeding carried out by public auditors revealed that it is planned insufficiently, there are no proper conditions to preserve endangered Lithuanian farm animal breeds, and the livestock breeding control and state supervision of the breeding is inefficient.
The Farm Animal Breeding Development and Support programme 2010-2015 did not evaluate the present breeding situation and did not establish specific measures and criteria for evaluating the achievement of objectives (existing and planned values). Out of the 42 programme measures 8 were evaluated as clearly defined (they can be quantitatively measured or the fact can be stated), and the majority – 34 measures – were evaluated as not specific, relating to the process (performance of certain activity) and not to the result (achievement of better indicators). The measure “Programme for Preservation of Genetic Resources of the Lithuanian Farm Animals” within the Ministry of Agriculture Strategic Plan programme “Rural Development and Business Promotion” is allocated 1 million EUR annually, the measure “Support for Breeding” – 3.27 million EUR annually. However these measures and their activities are not included in the Farm Animal Breeding Development and Support programme 2010-2015, thus there are no possibilities to relate these state budget funded measures with the mentioned programme and to establish which programme objectives they implement.
Public auditors warn that there are no proper conditions to preserve all endangered farm animal breeds, because the criteria for inclusion of breeds into the list of preserved Lithuanian farm animals are not specified, and the measures carried out to preserve these breeds are inadequate, thus the major threat of disappearing of some breeds remains.
Audit also found that farmers are not sufficiently encouraged to carry out livestock productivity control therefore compared to other EU countries, less than half dairy cattle are being controlled (46 % dairy cows are controlled, EU average being 80%).There is little control of other breeding farm animals, therefore there are no comprehensive breeding data, necessary for strategic and economic breeding decisions to be made.
In addition, there is a lack of cooperation between the supervisory authorities, and the entities to be inspected are selected on the basis of risk evaluation, carried out on the basis of inaccurate data. Unplanned and not related with supervision objectives farm visits create preconditions for the inefficient use of resources, in addition, the monitoring of elimination of irregularities detected is insufficient – the number of feedback control checks is decreasing (30 checks in 2012 compared to 7 checks in 2014).
To ensure the improvement of Lithuanian farm animal breeds and preservation of genetic resources, the Ministry of Agriculture was recommended to improve preparation of programmes for farm animal breeding development and selection, to envisage and implement measures encouraging the performance of control of farm animal productivity and preservation of genetic resources. In order to reduce the administrative burden on entities, measures were proposed to the State Animal Breeding Supervision Service that should help to carry out the state breeding supervision more effectively. In total 14 recommendations were provided in order to eliminate the shortcomings, that should be implemented until 2017 by the Ministry of Agriculture and State Animal Breeding Supervision Service. The National Audit Office will monitor the implementation of the provided recommendations.