Animal Care
The Animal Care Program is the cornerstone FARM Program in which 98% of U.S. dairy farmers participate. The program establishes animal care standards developed by the FARM Farmer Advisory Council, the Animal Care Task Force, NMPF’s Animal Health and Well-Being Committee and approved by the NMPF board. The standards are comprehensively outlined in the FARM Animal Care Reference manual, outlining best practices for farmers to implement on-farm. The implementation of these standards is evaluated through on-farm evaluations, conducted by trained second party evaluators. Third party verification evaluates a statistically valid percentage of farms each year to ensure that the second party evaluations were conducted with the highest level of integrity.