At their annual meeting this week the National Milk Producer Federation’s Board of Directors voted to require each dairy marketing group participating in their animal care program enroll all their farmer suppliers in the program.
Federation’s Chris Galen says the aim is to improve the quality of animal care across the supply chain and be able to show consumers they’re being responsible.
Galen says their Farmers Assuring Responsible Management Program is seeing great participation already from individual farmers, milk processors and dairy cooperatives.
Galen says there are new provisions in the FARM program that establishes a clear process to investigate allegations of animal mistreatment on farms enrolled in the program. Any such farm will be subject to an independent review and may be temporarily suspended from the program if the allegations are substantiated.