This PM discusses whether the Rural Development Programme should incorporate support to health enhancing measures for milk cows, sows, and ewes. The conclusions are:

• Economic theory provides arguments for supporting measures to enhance animal health as such measures could lower the use of antibiotics in animal husbandry and thereby slowing the development of antibiotic resistance, as well as increase animal welfare and productivity. Since healthier animals can be assumed to be more productive, the GHG-emissions per unit produced could also decrease.
• However, it needs to be shown that the suggested measures are efficient with effects that go beyond those achieved by measures in voluntary programmes and recommendations already practiced in Swedish animal husbandry. To our knowledge, there are presently not sufficient empirical data to demonstrate that this is the case.

This publication is in Swedish.