Effort Focuses on Cow Care

Tulare County - As more and more pressure is put on the dairy industry by environmentalists and animal rights groups, the mostly family-owned industry is fighting back.

Last week, a coalition of dairy groups launched a statewide program to promote and verify responsible animal care on the state's 1,750 family dairy farms.

Known as the National Dairy FARM Program: Farmers Assuring Responsible Management, the new program is designed to assist farmers in demonstrating their ethical treatment of dairy livestock animals and create consistency of dairy animal care practices across the country.

“Responsible care and treatment of animals is a core value for our dairy families, and we know it's important to dairy consumers,” said William C. Van Dam, chairman of the statewide Dairy Cares coalition. “This new program is a major step forward for our state, in that it provides a credible, verifiable way for dairy farmers to demonstrate to consumers that these core values are carried out in our daily management practices.”

Dairy Cares is made up of producers and processors and has its roots in the battle to get dairies permitted in Tulare County in the 1990s.

Developed by the nation's leading animal scientists, veterinarians and dairy industry experts, the National Dairy FARM Program contains a comprehensive set of animal care best management practices. As the nation's leader in milk production, California dairy farmers are among the first in the nation to adopt the effort. Because California's dairy products are marketed nationally and internationally, California dairy farmers recognize the importance of participating in a nationwide program to ensure national uniformity for customers and consumers.

“Actions, not words, are the only way to maintain and build trust with our consumers,” said Jamie Bledsoe, a dairy farmer from Riverdale and co-chair of the Dairy Cares Animal Well-Being Committee. “We've always cared for our animals, and now we have a program in place to validate that we care. And in those rare instances when animal care doesn't measure up, we have a program to identify issues and address them.”

The dairy industry recently got beat up in a report on ABC Nightline late-night news show that showed dairy cows being mistreated on an upper New York state dairy farm. Animal rights groups claim the treatment of cows in that report is commonplace throughout what they call “corporate dairy farms.”

Michael Boccadoro with Dairy Cares said the new program is not a response to that report, but certainly will help dairymen to tell their side of the story and to ensure animals are properly treated.

“This has been in the works for several years. It's not in direct response to the incidents that are out there,” he said Monday.

However, he admitted the industry for a long time has felt it needed a program that “documents the good practices that California dairy families utilize and have been utilizing for years.”

Dairy Cares will promote Dairy FARM throughout California using a five-point strategy, which includes:

1 – Adoption of the National Dairy FARM animal care best practice standards;

2 – Orientation of dairy farmers to National Dairy FARM standards through workshops and educational materials from the University of California and California Dairy Quality Assurance Program;

3 – On-farm evaluation of each dairy farm to assess compliance and provide a benchmark to measure improvement;

4 – Producer support and assistance to continuously improve animal care practices; and

5 – Independent third-party verification to demonstrate program integrity and credibility.

“Dairy farmers are passionate about the care they provide to their animals. The National Dairy FARM Program takes that passion and quantifies it to tell the story of dairy animal care,” said Jamie Jonker, vice president of scientific and regulatory affairs at National Milk Producers Federation. “FARM is a very thorough program, with credible animal care standards developed jointly by veterinarians, animal scientists and dairy farmers.”

With the new National Dairy FARM standards already in place, Dairy Cares coalition members are now moving forward with initial outreach and education classes. They were in Tulare County Monday meeting with some local dairymen.
Workshops this spring will review critical issues in animal welfare and prepare dairy farmers for an upcoming on-farm evaluation, which are expected to begin later this year.

As the program matures, post-evaluation support and assistance will occur later this year with third-party verifications slated to begin in 2011. The program will continue into the future with follow-up evaluations on a routine basis.

Boccadoro said the effort will go a long ways toward educating the consumer as well.

“We've got to document what the industry is doing it right. Then share that information with consumers,” he said. “We've got to reconnect the dairy farmers with consumers.”

The above story is the property of The Valley Voice Newspaper and may not be reprinted without explicit permission in writing from the publisher.