The FARM Animal Care Program standards are revised every three years to reflect the most current science and best management practices within the dairy industry. Standards, rationale, and accountability measures are reviewed and revised by the FARM Animal Care Task Force and National Milk Producers Federation Animal Health and Well-Being Committee with input from industry stakeholder groups including farmers, animal scientist and veterinarians. The National Milk Producers Federation Board of Directors provide final approval on version standards. FARM is currently in the process of facilitating the development of FARM Animal Care Version 5.
Focus groups with representatives from the farmer, veterinary, academic, and processor/co-op sectors were held to discuss the specific issues that each group would like to see addressed in Version 5.0 of the FARM program.
A survey developed from the results of the focus groups will be distributed online to solicit additional feedback from farmers, veterinarians, academics, and processors/co-op staff across the United States.
FARM will host bi-monthly webinars to provide stakeholders with progress updates on Version 5 development.
As part of Version 5 revision process, we are providing dairy farmers and our industry stakeholders and partners with an opportunity to provide early input on the topics, issues, and potential changes they would like NMPF to consider for this program. It will take approximately 15 mins to complete this survey. All responses will be anonymous. The survey results will be summarized into a final report, which will be available on the FARM website later in 2021.
Take the Survey