Response to interpellation 2024/25:695 on access to district veterinarians in southern Halland
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
The debate concerns the availability of district veterinarians in southern Halland. KD argues that the state is responsible for animal health and medical care and that the district veterinarians are a basic organization for preparedness and infection control 1. KD emphasizes that the district veterinarians should cover areas where there is a lack of basis for private actors 2 3. KD claims that the government has taken responsibility by providing 30 million kronor and appointing an inquiry 1 2 3. KD argues that the current system is not reasonable and that more money has been allocated to the operations to get this in order 4. C argues that the minister bears responsibility for the economic frameworks and that the reduction is due to too low appropriations 5 6. C claims that the decision affects agriculture and food production 5.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Landsbygdsministern Peter Kullgren (KD)
Mr. Speaker! Christofer Bergenblock has asked me what measures I intend to take to ensure that Halland and other parts of Sweden will have full access to veterinarians around the clock, every day of the year, for both basic health and medical care as well as for the management of infectious diseases.
The state has for a long time taken on a responsibility for the health and medical care of animals. It is the Swedish Board of Agriculture (Statens jordbruksverk) that is responsible for ensuring that there are veterinarians available during outbreaks of infectious animal diseases and for ensuring that all animals in human care can receive health and medical care. According to the ordinance with instructions for the Swedish Board of Agriculture, there shall be access to a veterinarian for animal medical care around the clock if there are animal welfare reasons.
The District Veterinarians are the Swedish Board of Agriculture's basic organization for preparedness and infectious disease control in the field and are primarily financed by fees and government grants. The grant is intended as compensation for the District Veterinarians performing certain socially useful veterinary services. From the ordinance with instructions for the Swedish Board of Agriculture, it appears that the District Veterinarians may only be established where it is required to ensure access to veterinarians.
The primary mission of the district veterinarians is to provide healthcare for agricultural animals in the areas where they are established. The district veterinarians may, however, with certain limitations and under certain conditions, also provide healthcare for horses and companion animals.
During the recent decades, not least the shortage of animal health personnel and the state's commitments to ensure a well-functioning organization during outbreaks of infectious animal diseases have led to major challenges. Following the government's proposal in the budget bill 2025, the Riksdag decided on a reinforcement of 30 million kronor to Statens jordbruksverk to ensure the availability of a veterinarian 24 hours a day throughout the country.
The government also gave a special investigator a mandate in June 2024 to investigate the design of an accessible, sustainable, and effective veterinary preparedness. The mandate includes, among other things, analyzing the need for and the conditions for introducing an obligation for veterinarians to maintain preparedness for animal healthcare during on-call hours, as well as analyzing the need for and the conditions for introducing compensation in the form of preparedness grants or similar compensation for private actors' participation in preparedness for animal healthcare during on-call hours. The mandate is to be reported on August 31 this year.
Infection control and animal welfare are priority issues for the government. Animals in need of care shall receive care regardless of where in the country they are located and regardless of at what point in time the need arises. I look forward to receiving the commission's proposals on the design of an accessible, sustainable, and effective veterinary preparedness.
Christofer Bergenblock (C)
Mr. Speaker! Thank you, Minister for Rural Affairs Peter Kullgren, for allowing us to gather here shortly after the rest of the Riksdag has left the building!
The Minister for Rural Affairs has led the work to develop a food strategy for Sweden. It took two and a half years, and it was perhaps not quite as comprehensive and concrete as one had expected. But one of the ambitions in the food strategy is nevertheless to increase the Swedish food supply.
To increase food production, profitability for our farmers is required. It is required that we protect the farmland. Resilience is required to be able to secure the food supply. Reduced red tape is required. Access to inputs is required, and also access to healthcare for the animals at all hours of the day, every day of the year. It is precisely this that we need to discuss here today.
The veterinary activity in Sweden is a responsibility that partly rests with the Minister, as the state has taken on the responsibility for basic health and medical care for our animals within agriculture. It is up to the Minister to ensure that it is so.
This is administered via the Swedish Board of Agriculture and the district veterinary services in places where there are no private alternatives that cover around the clock, and that is the case in very few places. To ensure access to veterinary services around the clock, there is an on-call service with the district veterinarians. It is often precisely this on-call service that the regular private actors are unable to manage or staff. That is where the problem lies right now.
The decision from the Swedish Board of Agriculture to reduce the district veterinarians in Halland concerns the veterinary activities in southern Halland, centered in Halmstad. It affects four municipalities: Laholms kommun, Halmstads kommun, Falkenbergs kommun, and Hylte kommun. This is an area where we have a very high animal density and a large food production. It belongs to the areas in the country that have the highest milk production and livestock production, and there, one is naturally completely dependent on having access to veterinarians around the clock.
If it is a failed birth or if animals injure themselves, the alternative for many farmers is naturally that they are forced to euthanize the animals, with the costs, the problems and the emotional suffering that it entails.
The reduction will take place on September 1. The reason for the reduction, according to the Swedish Board of Agriculture itself, is that they have received too low appropriations from the government. They have demanded higher appropriations, and they have received such that it is not enough to cover the costs of this activity.
It will affect the farmers, agriculture and food production in Halland, and it stands in stark contrast to the food strategy that the minister himself has been involved in developing.
My question, which I do not think I received an answer to but which is in the interpellation, is: What does the minister intend to do to resolve this situation and secure veterinary activities throughout Halland?
Landsbygdsministern Peter Kullgren (KD)
Mr. Speaker! The interpellator begins with the food strategy. I am very pleased that we have an updated food strategy in place. It is significantly more ambitious in direction than the previous food strategy was. Even though much was good in the former as well, no major effect was seen at the farm level, and that is what we want to achieve. We want to achieve this through, among other things, the direction in the food strategy, where we describe, among other things, more concrete objectives for how much food production should increase. We have some new focus areas on robustness. We talk more about exports and focus on Swedish quality and gastronomy. In that regard, we have taken important steps.
But aside from that, we have a long series of investigations that are also intended to strengthen agriculture and food production in Sweden. There, we are now moving from an investigative phase to an executive phase.
Regarding the veterinary activities in Sweden, it is, just as the interpellator says, extremely central that they function. I can assure you that I and the entire government take this seriously. It is also for that reason that this government has provided funds for the district veterinarians' activities.
The change that is to come into effect in southern Halland this autumn does not mean that the state's responsibility for a functioning veterinary care is abandoned. I assume that the interpellor also understands that I, as a minister, cannot step in and influence the Swedish Board of Agriculture's decisions in detail because I would then be guilty of ministerial rule.
The Swedish Board of Agriculture has conducted an investigation before the decision was made, and based on that material, the authority assesses that the care animal owners have a right to expect will be able to be offered.
As I understand it, it is not uncommon for farmers to use private practitioners during the day and for their animal health prevention work. This means that the district veterinarians get a very skewed distribution in terms of workload with an overweight towards on-call time, i.e., nights and weekends.
The district veterinarians receive state co-financing for their activities, but the uneven distribution of work means it is difficult to make the money last. It is also difficult to recruit and retain staff when there is so much on-call duty.
I am not saying that it will be problem-free in Halland this autumn, but I will make sure to keep myself informed. I know that the investigation into a more accessible, sustainable and efficient veterinary preparedness will be presented this autumn. As I mentioned in my introduction, it is something that I look forward to very much.
I still want to emphasize what I said at the beginning. The activities of the district veterinarians are intended to cover areas where, in a deregulated market, the animal density may be low, where it is not judged to be a basis for private practicing veterinarians in the same way, and where the alternatives do not exist at all. That is the core mission that they have. That being said, it is obviously important that we ensure we get a situation that is sustainable even where we have a high density of animals and where the private market functions better.
Christofer Bergenblock (C)
Mr. Speaker! I understand very well that the Minister cannot step in and micro-manage agencies with individual decisions regarding their operations. On the other hand, it is the Minister who bears the responsibility for the frameworks that the agency has received in the form of financial resources from the government, and it is the Minister who bears responsibility for the mandate that the agency is to perform. The veterinary activity is a fundamental mandate that one has to perform and which one obviously is not currently managing in the way that is expected.
It is not possible as a minister to hide behind authorities or behind investigations that one has commissioned. One is actually forced to take responsibility here and now for what is happening within Swedish agriculture and within, in this case, the district veterinary activities.
It is good that the investigation regarding the veterinarians has been appointed and will deliver its result by August 31 this year at the latest. But the day after, September 1, the district veterinarians in Halland are closing their operations. We all know what kind of time lag that is. After an investigation has been delivered, it must be sent out for consultation and prepared. A government bill must be written, if the government thinks it is a sensible proposal. Then it must be decided in the Riksdag. We will be there sometime in late autumn 2026 before this can potentially become a reality.
It is very good to investigate how we can support and ensure that the private sector takes greater responsibility and is paid to take greater responsibility for 24-hour operations regarding veterinary readiness. But in the meantime, it will be closed in southern Halland and probably there will be a lack of availability of veterinarians.
This decision from the Swedish Board of Agriculture has received very strong criticism from many entities. Criticism has naturally come from the farmers in Halland and from the horse owners in Halland, who also largely utilize the district veterinarians. Criticism has come from LRF, from the private practitioners, and from the district veterinarians themselves. But criticism has also come from the County Administrative Board in Halland and the County Administrative Board in Kronoberg, which have analyzed the decision. They bluntly state in the beginning of the analysis that it is economic reasons that cause the Board of Agriculture to scale back. It is not because there are enough private practitioners that they are scaling back, but it is because they have too little money.
Furthermore, a consequence analysis is missing in the Swedish Board of Agriculture's decision basis, the county administrative boards state. In the analysis that the county administrative boards have conducted, they have written the following: The area where the district veterinarians in Halmstad operate belongs to some of the country's most animal-dense areas regarding both meat production and milk production. The absence of veterinary proximity and availability gives immediate negative consequences for animal welfare, for agriculture, for the animal keeper's economy, for preparedness and for diseases, as well as reduced state presence. Within the area with limited veterinary availability, long-term consequences risk becoming reduced profitability, reduced willingness among farmers to invest in expansion or enterprise within animal production, reduced production, and weaker civil defense.
So, the county administrative boards in Halland and Kronoberg have rewritten this decision.
Then, as a minister, one needs to look at: What will be the consequences of what my government agency does, and in what way can I steer so that the agency works to meet the need for veterinarians throughout the country? There is both an opportunity to provide the funds that are needed and an opportunity to steer via regulatory letters to the agency if one does not think it is fulfilling its mandate.
But my question to the Minister is: How does the Minister view the analysis that the county administrative boards have made?
Landsbygdsministern Peter Kullgren (KD)
Mr. Speaker! It must be stated that there is a right of establishment in the veterinary market. The majority of the activities are currently carried out by private actors. I do not know, Mr. Speaker, if the Center Party wants to change that order, but one can hardly get that impression. I believe that we fundamentally have a good order, where there is a right of establishment. But we need to tweak the system.
I return to the fact that the basic mission for the district veterinarians is to cover where there is no basis for other actors to step in. The interpellor says themselves that this is one of Sweden's most animal-dense areas. In that case, there should be a basis for private actors to take over. We also know that many farmers use the private actors during the day and then use the district veterinarians on call.
As I said earlier, I do not think this will be problem-free, and we are following the issue.
I can however state that this government, unlike previous governments, has allocated more funds to the district veterinarians. They received an extra 30 million in the budget that the Riksdag decided on. Furthermore, the investigation shall look at the entire system and the on-call services. Can we do more to get more people to take on-call shifts?
I cannot overrule the Swedish Board of Agriculture's decision. But do not come to me saying that no responsibility is being taken! Of course, we take responsibility for our agencies, and it is crystal clear in the agency's mandate what the responsibilities are. However, all agencies need to prioritize based on the resources the Riksdag decides the agency shall have and do the best with the frameworks we collectively agree upon for different types of activities.
Of course, the shortage of veterinarians affects the possibility of carrying out animal production and owning animals. Now, it is not the case that there are no veterinarians at all, even though it almost sounded that way when the interpellor read out the quotes. But that will not be the case, and it is important to emphasize.
Again: We are following the issue very closely, we have investigations underway and we have reinforced the Swedish Board of Agriculture's activities with the district veterinarians.
Christofer Bergenblock (C)
Madam Speaker! Let me clarify to the Minister for Rural Affairs that the Center Party stands behind the right of free establishment. We also stand behind the fact that food production in Sweden needs to increase. We have pushed for this for a very long time. We have also ensured that the securing of food production is included in the total defense work. Access to veterinarians is a prerequisite for this.
A lot is being assumed here. The County Administrative Boards, which I quoted, state that the Swedish Board of Agriculture has not even investigated to what extent there are private practitioners who are willing to take over. One can assume that they exist, but it has not been investigated. Lantbrukstidningen ATL, on the other hand, has spoken with the private practitioners, and some veterinarians said that there is a high risk that they will shut down current on-call activities because they will be overwhelmed with calls from southern Halland about covering the on-call needs there. There is therefore a risk that it will be a double blow for the farmers in Halland.
The basic mission of the Swedish Board of Agriculture is to ensure that there is a functioning basic healthcare for agricultural animals throughout Sweden, and throughout Sweden, animal-dense Halland is included, with or without privately practicing veterinarians. There is a possibility for the Swedish Board of Agriculture to pay compensation to privately practicing veterinarians to secure veterinary services around the clock, but that path has not been one that they have been prepared to take.
It does not work to refer to an investigation that might come with a legislative proposal in just over a year, but as a minister, one needs to act here and now.
Can I go home to Halland this afternoon and say that the Minister for Rural Affairs will act in this matter?
Landsbygdsministern Peter Kullgren (KD)
Madam Speaker! The interpellor can go home to Halland and say that it was lucky that Sweden changed governments so that the talk about increased food production becomes more than just talk. We did not see much of the measures the government has made to strengthen Swedish agriculture and thereby increase food production during the two previous terms, when the Center Party was part of the government base. It is a greeting I would like to see conveyed to the farmers in Halland – whom I actually visited yesterday when I was in Halmstad and met dairy farmers.
I mentioned that one part of the investigation into veterinary preparedness, which is to be presented this autumn and which we will work on urgently, is to review the system we have. No one thinks that the situation I have described is reasonable, that is, that certain alternatives are used during the day when it is cheap and the more expensive on-call parts are referred to the state. In that case, the system does not work and results in skyrocketing costs, and we have now allocated more money to the district veterinary activities to get this in order.
It is important to note that many parts of the country are significantly less densely populated by animals than the one we have just discussed, and there it should be even more difficult to have good coverage of veterinary activities and there are even fewer private alternatives.
Last but not least, it is about a prioritization of money. We have taken a first step. Now we are in a budget process, and we will have to return to this further ahead.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.