Tuesday 29th October 2019Holborn, London

2019 RUMA CONFERENCE

BUILDING ON INDUSTRY SUCCESS

WelcomeWelcome to the third biennial RUMA conference, kindly hosted again by the J.Sainbury’s Conference Centre in Holborn, central London.

The timing of this conference could not be more critical for a number of reasons.

As the UK works to develop trading relationships around the world, we need to understand what opportunities and threats our current use of farm medicines presents. How favourably are our efforts in responding to the threat of AMR being viewed? Have we maintained progress in reducing, refining or replacing antibiotic use? Are our livestock fit and healthy enough for the future, and able to give us the advantage we need?

Resistance has been in the headlines consistently over the past two years – not just to antibiotics, but increasingly to parasiticides, anti-virals and fungicides. Is our horizon-scanning good enough, and are we acting with enough speed?

With recent advances in behavioural insights and the power of the ‘nudge’, are we grasping the opportunity to use these techniques to drive the adoption of best practice on-farm?

The UK livestock sectors are now entering the ‘home straight’ for their delivery of their Targets Task Force objectives on responsible use of antibiotics (see www.ruma.org.uk). We will update on progress, but what happens after 2020? Should we be moving to a more holistic way of assessing responsible use?

We look forward to addressing these thorny issues during a day of lively debate. Please participate and be part of our solutions moving forward.

Gwyn Jones

RUMA is a ‘not-for-profit’ alliance of organisations representing every stage of the ’farm to fork’ process which aims to promote a coordinated and integrated approach to best practice in the use of medicines on-farm.

2019 RUMA CONFERENCE

Morning Chairman: Gwyn Jones

10.30 Welcome

Gwyn Jones, Chairman, RUMA

Welcome to the conference, and introduction to the morning session.

10.45 A vision for safe and healthy food Heather Hancock, Chair, Food Standards Agency

In aiming to feed a growing domestic and global population against a backdrop of climate change and ecosystem challenge, the UK must build its capacity to deliver safe and healthy food, supplied from modern and productive farming systems that incorporate responsible use of medicines. Heather asks what the obstacles and opportunities are, and how can we pre-empt them.

11.00 The future food agenda: “Upping our Game” Stuart Roberts, Vice President, National Farmers Union

Irrespective of the Brexit outcome, the UK needs to build its credentials as a major food supplier offering safe, quality products, which are backed by good animal health and welfare, high levels of food safety and responsible use of medicines. Stuart looks at how can this be achieved, and what farmers and vets can do to maintain standards and avoid the pressure of a race to the bottom.

11.20 Leadership in responsible use of medicines Kitty Healey, Head of Antimicrobial Resistance, Veterinary Medicines Directorate

On the day the 2018 Veterinary Antimicrobial Resistance and Sales Surveillance report is due to be released, we will find out whether the UK has maintained progress in reducing sales of antibiotics to treat food-producing animals. But Kitty will also examine whether levels of resistance genes found in food have been responding to reductions in use – and ask what leadership role can, should or could the UK play on the global AMR stage?

11.40 AMR around the world Shabbir Simjee, RUMA Independent Scientific Group

Since the launch of the O’Neill report in 2016 and the subsequent United Nations declaration on Antimicrobial Resistance which acknowledged the scale of the threat, many countries have launched strategies to tackle AMR domestically. Despite frequent inter-country comparison, all strategies are different and have a range of ambitions. Shabbir summarises who’s doing what, and who’s making most progress…

12:00 Panel session A lively Q&A-based debate between the morning’s speakers, also taking questions from the floor.

Hosted by Gwyn Jones and featuring Heather Hancock, Stuart Roberts, Kitty Healey and Shabbir Simjee. Also joined by Duncan Sinclair from the British Retail Consortium and Aarti Ramachandran from FAIRR.

12.45 Lunch

A buffet will be provided in the foyer.

2019 RUMA CONFERENCE

Afternoon Chairman: Catherine McLaughlin

1.25 Welcome back

Catherine McLaughlin, Vice-Chairman, RUMA

Introduction to the afternoon session.

1.35 Challenges for farm medicines

Julie Fitzpatrick, Scientific Director, Moredun Research Institute

In the face of increasing resistance to medicines, novel opportunities are emerging for disease prevention and control. Julie looks at the wider range of challenges we face and the solutions science could offer to safeguard our medicines; she also asks whether the size and profile of the antibiotic resistance threat is blinding us to other potentially underrated challenges?

1.55 Challenges for the veterinary sector

Simon Doherty, Senior Vice-President, British Veterinary Association

The veterinary surgeon’s role is evolving from dispenser of medicines to facilitator of comprehensive disease management protocols. What farmer-vet models for co-operation and behaviour change are driving good farm practice?

2.15 The challenge of perception

Maryn McKenna, Journalist

In examining how the antibiotic era created modern agriculture through her writing and journalism, Maryn turns her sights to the UK and reveals: how our farming, food standards and animal health and welfare are perceived by the rest of the world; what hopes and fears those outside the UK have for our future; and whether we are exploiting the opportunities we have?

3.00 Panel session A brisk Q&A-based debate between the afternoon’s speakers, also taking questions from the floor.

Hosted by Catherine McLaughlin and featuring Julie Fitzpatrick, Simon Doherty and Maryn McKenna.

3.30 Closing remarks

Christine Middlemiss, Chief Veterinary Officer, Defra

3.50 Conference close

Gwyn Jones, Chairman, RUMA

2019 RUMA CONFERENCE

The SpeakersSimon Doherty Senior Vice-President, British Veterinary Association

Simon Doherty is a veterinary consultant and senior lecturer at Queen’s University Belfast.

With two decades of experience in veterinary

practice, industry and academia, Simon is well positioned to represent the varied veterinary roles and diversity of BVA’s 18,000+ members.

For three years, Simon was the Animal Sciences & Aquaculture specialist for the Department for International Trade. Last year, he was appointed a GlobalScot in the animal health & aquaculture sector by the Office of the First Minister in Scotland.

Simon is a past president of the North of Ireland Veterinary Association and of the Northern Ireland Branch of BVA. He currently chairs the UK One Health Coordination Group and is one of two BVA representatives at the Federation of Veterinarians in Europe (FVE). He also chairs the FVE FishMedPlus Coalition.

A STEM Ambassador, he is also actively involved in the provision of veterinary careers advice, regularly mentoring applicants to veterinary school. He is also an ambassador for the livestock development charity, Send a Cow, and a trustee of the Animal Welfare Foundation.

Julie Fitzpatrick Scientific Director, Moredun Research Institute As well as being Scientific Director of Moredun Research Institute and the CEO of The Moredun Group. Julie Fitzpatrick also holds a Chair

in Food Security at the University of Glasgow’s School of Medicine, Veterinary Medicine and Life Sciences.

She became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2007, a Fellow of the Royal Agricultural Society of Scotland in 2008, and was awarded an OBE for services to livestock research in 2014. She was awarded the Royal Smithfield Club Bicentenary Trophy for contributions to

agriculture in 2016, and the Dalrymple- Champney’s Cup for veterinary research in 2018. She has acted as Vice Chair of GALVmed, a public-private partnership funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Department For International Development; Co-Chair of the Scottish Food Commission; a member of the Scottish Science Advisory Council, and of the Board of Quality Meat Scotland.

At the UK level, Julie is currently Chair of the UK Science Partnership for Animal and Plant Health and Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board, and Non-Executive Director, of the Animal and Plant Health Agency. Her personal research has focused on infectious diseases of cattle, sheep and goats with particular emphasis on mastitis, welfare, and developing countries.

Heather HancockChair, FSAHeather Hancock has chaired the Food Standards Agency since April 2016, having joined the Board as Deputy Chair in October 2015. Alongside this role, Heather is a non-executive

Director of Rural Solutions Ltd, and an adviser on sustainable rural development. She is also Deputy Lord Lieutenant of North Yorkshire.

Prior to moving into non-executive roles, Heather was a Managing Partner of Deloitte in the UK and Switzerland, and part of its global leadership team. Heather began her career in public sector, and served in the Senior Civil Service, and as Chief Executive of a major non-departmental public body and a local authority.

Kitty HealeyHead of Antimicrobial Resistance, VMDKitty graduated from Bristol Vet School and worked in small animal practice for several years before undertaking an epidemiology PhD at the

University of Liverpool. She has worked at the Veterinary Medicines Directorate for the past 10 years, heading up scientific assessment of target animal safety and efficacy for pharmaceutical

2019 RUMA CONFERENCE

veterinary medicines before moving to lead on antimicrobial resistance at the VMD. In her time as head of AMR Kitty’s team has worked with the veterinary profession, farmers and other stakeholders to raise awareness of AMR and promote the responsible use of antibiotics in animals in the UK and beyond, rising to the challenges set by the UK’s AMR 5 year strategy 2013-2018 and the recommendations of the 2016 O’Neill Review on AMR.

The work of Kitty’s team is part of the cross-government ‘one health’ approach to tackling AMR, delivering the UK’s ambitions set out in the UK 5 Year National AMR Action Plan 2019-2023 and the UK AMR 20 Year Vision to 2040.

Maryn McKennaJournalistMaryn McKenna is an independent journalist who specializes in public health, global health and food policy. She is a columnist for WIRED, a Senior Fellow at the Center for

the Study of Human Health at Emory University, and the author of the 2017 best seller BIG CHICKEN: The Incredible Story of How Antibiotics Created Modern Agriculture and Changed the Way the World Eats, which received the 2018 Science in Society Award and was named a best book of 2017 by Amazon, Smithsonian, Science News, Wired, Civil Eats, and other publications (and is published in the UK and other territories under the title Plucked.)

Maryn’s earlier, award-winning books are Superbug and Beating Back the Devil. She appears in the 2019 German documentary Resistance Fighters and the 2014 U.S. documentary Resistance, and her 2015 TED Talk, “What do we do when antibiotics don’t work any more?” has been viewed 1.7 million times and translated into 34 languages.

As well as this, Maryn writes for The New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, Mother Jones, Newsweek, NPR, Smithsonian, Scientific American, Slate, The Atlantic, Nature, and The Guardian, among other publications.

She was a 2018 Poynter Fellow in Journalism at Yale University and has received the 2019 John P. McGovern Award for Excellence in Biomedical Communication, the 2014 Leadership Award from the Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics, and the 2013 Byron H. Waksman Award for Excellence in the Public Communication of Life Sciences.

Maryn lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

Christine MiddlemissChief Veterinary Officer, DefraChristine Middlemiss was appointed UK Chief Veterinary Officer on 1 March 2018, having been working as the CVO in New South Wales, Australia since July 2016

where she led major improvements to biosecurity across many farming sectors. This work included implementation of: new outcome-focused, risk-based biosecurity legislation; online animal certification processes; and risk-based disease control approaches.

Prior to moving to Australia, Christine led Defra’s Animal Traceability and Public Health policy team, and also previously surveillance, including detection and response to new and emerging diseases such as Schmallenberg and Porcine Epidemic Diarrhoea.

Christine is also an experienced veterinarian. Before joining the UK government services in 2008, she worked in private practice with a specific interest in research, meat processing and livestock genetics for a number of years in Scotland and the north of England prior to joining the Animal Health Agency (now part of Animal and Plant Health Agency) as a Divisional Veterinary Manager in Scotland.

Christine comes from a farming family in the Borders of Scotland, with a background in beef cattle and sheep.

Aarti RamachandranHead of Research & Engagements, FAIRRAarti is Head of Research & Engagements at FAIRR, where she oversees the investor network’s collaborative engagement

and research initiatives, including the ground-breaking Coller FAIRR Protein Producer Index. Prior to this, she was client director at a global sustainability firm and served as ExxonMobil’s public and government affairs advisor for the west region for several years. In addition to her corporate experience, she has worked with two environmental non-profits and on short-term consulting assignments for the U.S. Treasury and GE Capital.

Aarti holds a MA in International Affairs from Columbia University in New York, MA in Journalism

2019 RUMA CONFERENCE

from the University of Missouri, Columbia, and a MS in Environmental Engineering from Northwestern University. She has worked in Europe, US and India, and speaks three languages. She serves on the advisory Board of the Partnership for Gender Equity, an initiative that supports gender equity in coffee supply chains.

Stuart RobertsNFU Vice PresidentStuart farms 400 hectares in Hertfordshire and Kent in partnership with his wife Emma and father Howard. A third generation arable and livestock farmer, Stuart has also

worked for Defra and the Food Standards Agency and held senior management roles within the meat supply chain.

The farm incorporates around 300 hectares of combinable crops supplying grain to more than 50 artisan mills and bakers throughout the UK. The remaining land is predominately permanent pasture and a small amount of woodland. The farm includes two cattle herds, a commercial Simmental / Hereford herd producing 14 month old store cattle and a small but growing pedigree herd of Hereford cattle. The business also includes a small flock of laying hens.

Stuart has been Hertfordshire NFU County Chairman since 2015 and has served on both the East Anglian livestock and combinable crops board. Stuart has previously held a non-executive position on the boards of Red Tractor and the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board.

Stuart has a daughter and three sons and enjoys cycling and running (slowly).

Shabbir SimjeeRUMA Independent Scientific GroupDr Simjee completed a PhD in 1998 from the University of Birmingham Medical School. After a brief time in research he went to work at the US Food

and Drug Administration between 2000-2003 at the Centre for Veterinary Medicine specifically looking at gene transfer between animal and human pathogens and also heading the enterococcus part of the US National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring Systems (NARMS) program.

He returned back to the UK in 2004 to take up a position at Elanco Animal Health as global technical and regulatory advisor on antibiotics, and has recently taken up post as Chief Medical Officer at Elanco.

Dr Simjee is past-chair of the VetPath program, a Pan European AMR monitoring program, and is past co-chair of the CLSI veterinary antimicrobial susceptibility testing sub-committee.

Dr Simjee has served nine years as editor for Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, ten years as editor for Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy and continues to serve as editor on International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents.

Duncan Sinclair Chair of British Retail Consortium’s AMR Stewardship Working Group

Duncan joined Waitrose in January 2007 as Agriculture Manager covering the Meat, Poultry and Dairy sectors. He has responsibility for the

Waitrose livestock supply chains, which have been established over the last 25 years, and works closely with the processors’ and their teams. The Waitrose Farming Partnership is the framework for focused activity and development of the producer groups moving forward.

He has been a member of the Red Tractor Beef & Lamb Board since 2010, is currently the BRC Representative on the RUMA Board and Chair of the BRC AMR Stewardship Working Group. In 2015 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Agricultural Societies of the UK and a Fellow of the Institute of Agricultural Management in 2019.

2019 RUMA CONFERENCE

2019 RUMA CONFERENCE

This RUMA conference has been kindly supported by