Betting the FARM

It was about 12 months ago now that the Humane Society released the first of several undercover videos documenting the reprehensible treatment of culled dairy cattle at a meat packing plant in Southern California. The appearance of that initial gotcha video spurred the largest-ever beef recall, shuttered the plant where the video was taken, and resulted in a tizzy of activity throughout the entire beef marketing chain.

Even before that clarion call was sounded for renewed education and training on the proper treatment of cattle, it has become apparent to me that the dairy industry needs to be more proactive in assuring consumers that the milk they buy comes from healthy and conscientiously-cared for cows. Thanks in part to the many hygiene and sanitation regulations that farmers and processing plants faithfully follow, the dairy business has a commendable track record in the area of minimizing foodborne illness, and giving consumers a safe, nutritious product.

But what we have had a harder time with is documenting and detailing how dairy cows are handled on the farm, even when such treatment may have no direct bearing on milk quality or safety. While we have that latter message down, what we are finding today in the marketplace is that, at least for some marketers and consumers, product safety is no longer the only bar we have to hurdle. We also need to provide assurances that go beyond what pasteurization can offer.

That’s why NMPF is introducing a new program we’re calling the National Dairy FARM Program: Farmers Assuring Responsible Management. The mission of Dairy FARM is to bolster consumer trust and confidence in the U.S. dairy industry and demonstrate the industry’s commitment to the highest levels of animal care and quality assurance. Dairy FARM’s first step in reaching this goal is a consistent on-farm well-being program available to all producers.

This program, which is being done in conjunction with Dairy Management Inc., builds on several previous efforts. More than five years ago, NMPF worked with Keith Carlson and the Dairy Quality Assurance Center in Iowa to revamp the “Caring for Dairy Animals” manual that was then offered to our membership. The Dairy FARM program will use as the basis of its standards the DQA materials, which include best management practices for a variety of animal care issues, such as animal health and on-farm environment, facilities/housing, nutrition, equipment/milking procedures, transportation and handling. Many milk marketers use the DQA materials and thus are already familiar with the general foundation of Dairy FARM.

The new Dairy FARM program also builds on the work of the many actors in the dairy industry during the past two years who devised the National Dairy Animal Well-Being Initiative. NDAWI created a science-based set of principles and guidelines to serve as the foundation for dairy animal well-being programs. Dairy FARM is the logical next step in this process, as it moves beyond a conceptual series of principles, and applies a more detailed series of directions that farmers can follow. Eventually, Dairy FARM will also feature a third-party program verification system to assure credibility and demonstrate the program’s effectiveness.

Because most of the milk in this country is marketed through cooperatives, the Dairy FARM program will give cooperatives an organization-wide system to assure their customers, be they processors, retailers, or consumers, that their member farms are meeting basic standards relating to animal care. For processors that source milk directly from farmers, Dairy FARM will be a way to ensure that your company is receiving milk from a network of farms that affirm the importance of animal care in their day-to-day practices.

The Dairy FARM animal well-being program will be available to all producers and producer organizations. It will be a voluntary program – this isn’t about compulsion, but it is about uniformity. We already have a handful of similar assurance programs, many of them state-based or regional. But milk marketing is a national endeavor, in most cases. We need a national umbrella to address consumer concerns that are not going to go away.

National Milk Producers Federation

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