Dr Louise Whatford

Department: Pathobiology and Population Sciences

Research Groups: Sustainable Food Systems

Research Centres: Veterinary Epidemiology, Economics and Public Health

Louise is a postdoctoral researcher in the Veterinary Epidemiology, Economics and Public Health Group (VEEPH). She currently works on a project investigating sustainability in British sheep and beef food systems and is part of the Interdisciplinary Food Systems Teaching And Learning team

Louise graduated from the University of Bristol with a BSc in Animal Behaviour and Welfare. In 2019 she completed a PhD in epidemiology and microbiology that was interested in increasing our understanding of mastitis in sheep and developing strategies for its control. This has led to her interest in agriculture, livestock health and welfare and its links to sustainble food production, and interdisciplinary approaches to tackle questions.

Louise's research include inter- and transdisciplinary methods to understand more about sustainability in the beef and sheep food and marketing systems in Great Britain. She is particularly interested in animal welfare and integrating this into her research. She is also interested in the food system and systems thinking being an active member of the Interdisciplinary Food Systems Teaching and Learning (IFSTAL) team.

Ethics of animal use and management

Animal welfare issues often arise when there are conflicts of interest between humans and animals. This poses challenges around whose interests to prioritise, and what actions can be taken to produce the best moral outcome. The needs and wants of human, animal, and even environmental stakeholders must be understood and evaluated to decide what is the right course of action, but different ethicists and stakeholders may disagree about the conclusions of any ethical analysis. For example, unnecessary suffering must not be caused to legally protected animals, but what counts as ‘suffering’, when is it really ‘necessary’, and which animals should be protected? Evidence must be gathered and some consensus must be agreed upon as to weight the different possible actions.
Evaluation of the implementation of the UK Antimicrobial Resistance National Action Plan in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The project aims to evaluate the implementation of the UK Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) National Action Plan (NAP) 2019-2024 to contribute to the development and implementation of future AMR policy and adjustment of current implementation plans.

AMR is a global threat; microorganisms with resistance genes can spread through the movement of people, animals, food, soil, air, and water. In addition, some resistance genes can be directly transferred between microorganisms.
Interdisciplinary Food Systems Teaching and Learning (IFSTAL)

The food system is not functioning the way it should anymore, IFSTAL is designed to bring about the systemic change that the food system requires in order to limit the negative outcomes its currently delivering and prepare for the future.

IFSTAL is an interactive training programme designed to improve knowledge and understanding of the food system. It brings together expertise and experience of faculty and students from five leading higher education institutions (RVC, LSHTM, SOAS, The University of Oxford and The University of Warwick). IFSTAL addresses the urgent lack of a workforce skilled in food systems thinking.
Sustainable Beef & Sheep Food Systems

This project brings together different disciplinary and One Health specialists from two collaborating universities; the Royal Veterinary College and the University of Hertfordshire to contribute creatively to solutions for more sustainable beef and sheep production and marketing systems in Great Britain.

Using trans-disciplinary, systems modelling approach we aim to map the British beef and sheep food systems and identify metrics of sustainability for each farming system to create an integrated model to assess impacts.