Proving the Point

By: Sarah
Release Date: September 2010
Jerry Kozak,
President/CEO
As August ended, the animal rights community again made its presence felt publicly, through the release of a video from a veal operation in Ohio obtained surreptitiously by Mercy For Animals (MFA), an activist group which previously recorded hidden videos on dairy operations in Ohio and New York. MFA has used the release of this most recent undercover video to attack dairy production by linking it to veal farming.

As we all recognize, public attacks on livestock farming are nothing new, although the pace and ferocity of the video releases seems to be accelerating. Dealing with them is part and parcel of dealing with all of the other critiques of modern food production. But the confluence of improved camera technology, social media’s penetration, and the restive politics of food consumption are making for an increasingly sensitive environment.

That’s why NMPF is taking a big step forward this month – coincidentally, but providentially – with its Farmers Assuring Responsible Management (FARM) program. (I’ve written previously online about the FARM program, which you’ll recall is designed to provide consistency and uniformity to best practices in animal care and quality assurance in the dairy industry). Starting in September, we are now entering the second phase of FARM: enrolling individual farms in the animal care program, and starting on-farm evaluations of participating producers.

The first phase, over the past 18 months, was industry education about why we need a national, independently-verifiable system of animal care guidelines that producers pledge to follow on their operations. Admittedly, it’s been a terrible time economically to roll out such a program in the producer community. But at the same time, we continue to see reminders, both within the dairy sector and in other livestock sectors, that animal agriculture is in the crosshairs like never before – and we need to demonstrate a commitment to proper animal care as part of our defense.

Also as part of FARM’s initial phase, we have provided educational materials to producers, their cooperatives, and allied industry organization through the release of the detailed Animal Care Manual, and the handier Quick Reference User Guide. As a supplement to these materials, the Animal Care DVD is newly available online in both English and Spanish at www.nationaldairyfarm.com. The FARM Program video highlights best management practices for a variety of issues, including animal health, environment and facilities, animal nutrition, and transportation and handling.

So now we move to the implementation stage. Here, the ball really moves into the court of individual farmers and their cooperatives. Coops typically assemble milk from individual farms and market it to the types of customers that are expressing a desire to have a national dairy animal care program. So cooperatives have to make the decision as to whether the FARM program is an appropriate means of meeting that customer (and ultimately, consumer) need, while also serving the interests of their producer-members.

Right now, we have strong interest from most of the major coops, and many smaller ones, from coast to coast. Some have already begun the on-farm education and evaluation process that is the core of the second phase. Others are discussing the merits of the FARM approach at the leadership level. But I think everyone reads the same headlines, and sees that food marketers are increasingly making demands – some reasonable, some not – about verifying how and where food is being produced back at the farm. In fact, the result of the new veal video is that Costco will no longer purchase products from that Ohio farm.

While there are other animal care programs that have been developed, by private companies and even state consortiums, the advantage of the FARM program is that it is national. Since most of the biggest dairy customers are also national marketers, there is an inherent appeal for them in having a coast-to-coast care program, rather than one developed with a more regional approach. And the same uniform, national approach benefits farmers and coops; otherwise, they’ll ultimately be forced into duplicative programs each specific to a different processor or marketer, even though each program really does the same thing: verify that dairy cows are receiving appropriate care, and that farmers are making progress in widely adopting reasonable best practices.

The final phase will commence in 2011, when we have an independent party (i.e., someone not in the employ of that farmer) randomly visit a small portion of the producer operations enrolled in FARM to verify the integrity of the program by seeing that its care guidelines are being followed. In an ideal world, we wouldn’t need that level of verification, but we are way past the point in society where saying “trust us” is an acceptable defense.
Submitted by Sarah on Wed, 09/01/2010 - 14:34.

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