AnimalhealthEurope reflects on the findings from its recent report on animal health and sustainability, investigating the impact of investment in animal health for a greener planet and more secure food system.
Livestock farming is often a central talking point in climate discussions in Brussels or the sustainability debates that play out on global stages. Yet, farms in Europe are often overlooked for how they positively shape the health of the continent – not just through the nutritious and plentiful food they produce, but through the lower emissions released and less land required to produce such food at affordable prices.
A new analysis published by Oxford Analytica for AnimalhealthEurope, ‘Animal Health: Towards a More Resilient and Sustainable Future for Europe’, puts a bold idea at the centre of the sustainability conversation: animal health may be one of Europe’s most under-recognised climate and food security solutions.
And, more importantly, the impact of investing in animal disease prevention can be quantified. Demonstrating why animal health matters is the central thought behind this new report, commissioned by the animal medicines European trade association and conducted by Oxford Analytica, a leading research and analysis firm, which developed a unique regression model to measure different animal health indicators.
Drawing on data-driven modelling and detailed case studies from Germany, the United Kingdom, and France, the report reveals how healthier animals translate directly into lower emissions, reduced food losses, and increased resource efficiency. For policymakers and consumers looking for climate wins that don’t require reinventing the entire food system, the message is striking: supporting animal health is low-hanging fruit with high-impact returns.
The hidden costs of animal disease
The public often hears about diseases affecting animals – foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), avian influenza, bluetongue, lumpy skin disease, etc. – only during major outbreaks when there is an impact on the farming economy. But day to day, animal diseases can decrease food production while increasing the carbon footprint of livestock systems, and force farmers to use more feed, land, and water just to maintain the levels of food output to feed Europe’s citizens and those in export countries.
The report by Oxford Analytica quantifies these losses through three representative examples:
Increasing food production efficiency
Taking the German pig sector as an example, porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) is a well-known challenge among pig farmers, but its wider impacts rarely reach public attention. According to the analysis, even a modest 20% increase in vaccination coverage could reduce pig mortality by 11%, saving more than 65 million servings of pork that would otherwise be lost.
What sounds like a minor shift in behaviour suddenly becomes a sustainability milestone, with 21.9 million kilograms of feed kept from going to waste and land savings – equivalent to half the area of Brussels. Shifts to more holistic animal healthcare practices with prevention at the core also mean hundreds of thousands more animals are saved from premature death with no food output.
If you scale the increase in vaccination even further – from 20% to 80% – the benefits multiply dramatically. Nearly 197 million servings of pork could be saved – enough to feed every person in Germany at least twice!
Reducing emissions intensity
Moving on to the UK dairy herd as an example, foot-and-mouth disease is typically discussed in terms of causing trade barriers or animal suffering, but a lesser-known impact of such disease outbreaks is the emissions intensity of milk production.
In a nutshell, healthier dairy cattle produce more milk with fewer resources. Preventive measures to eliminate FMD from a low disease prevalence scenario could reduce CO2e emissions by 1.11% per litre of milk yielded – that’s an estimated 36,000 kg of CO2e. That jumps to a 10% reduction in emissions, when shifting from a severe outbreak scenario to a zero-disease scenario.
Milk loss in even mild outbreak scenarios can be as much as 25,000 litres – a product loss that demands extra feed, land use, and produces methane emissions with no milk output at the end.
Preventing food losses and protecting livelihoods
Finally, taking France’s poultry sector as an example, the analysis shows that increasing vaccination rates against highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) from 20-50% could cut poultry losses by one-third.
Beyond sparing the farmers from having to slaughter countless birds, the benefits of a 50% disease prevention rate include:
- 16 million more meals available.
- €5.5m saved in production costs.
- 5 million kilograms of feed not gone to waste.
When applied to broiler production, preventing losses could translate to €16.7m in savings – an economic cushion that matters profoundly to poultry farmers navigating volatile markets.
The triple dividend of better animal health
Individually, these case studies present powerful reasoning for improving investment on a national basis in holistic animal healthcare, and encouraging a more preventive approach to animal disease management Europe-wide.
Collectively, they point to an overarching conclusion – good animal health delivers a ‘triple dividend’:
- It boosts resource efficiency: Fewer animals lost to disease means fewer resources wasted upstream: land, water, feed, and energy. In a climate-constrained world, this is a sustainability imperative.
- It reduces greenhouse gases: Improved productivity lowers emissions per kilogram of meat, per litre of milk, or even per egg. Healthy animals simply use resources more efficiently.
- It strengthens food security: Europe’s food system already faces pressure from climate change, global trade shocks, and geopolitical instability. Cutting losses – especially preventable losses – helps stabilise both food supply and prices.
In other words, healthy animals help feed more people with fewer environmental costs.
The analysis highlights a rare win-win: improving animal health simultaneously advances climate action, economic resilience, and animal welfare, without requiring radical production shifts or consumer behaviour changes.
So, why isn’t animal disease prevention the go-to action?
With benefits this clear, it’s quite surprising that vaccination coverage and promotion of preventive measures are not the norm in Europe.
We believe there are several barriers hindering a more ‘fire prevention’ approach to animal disease management:
- Awareness: Many sustainability discussions overlook animal health as a climate tool. An analysis shows that animal health receives just 0.01% of global climate finance.
- Policy incentives: Regulations or subsidies rarely reward farmers for disease prevention relative to crisis management. Not all diseases are considered ‘priority’ for preventive approaches.
- Hidden ROI: Farmers shouldering vaccine costs upfront may not immediately see the economic benefit when all goes well. Disease outbreaks only become a concern when losses are incurred.
- Trade: Effective vaccination programmes require guarantees that food outputs can still be sold on other markets.
The takeaway from the analysis is both simple and profound: If Europe wants a sustainable food future, investing in animal health is not optional – it is foundational.
A more resilient, sustainable Europe may very well begin with something as straightforward as preventing animal disease.
