Commitment to High Quality Animal Care

Commitment to High Quality Animal Care

Remember the old adage, “one bad apple spoils the whole bunch”? While this may remain fairly accurate for a crate of fruit, is it really true of people? I think not. Take dairy farmers for instance, they’ve received a lot of bad press lately due to one or two “bad apples” being caught within the dairy industry mistreating animals in their care. Does that mean that all dairy farmers mistreat the animals in their care? No, quite the contrary. According to a recent National Milk Producers Federation report dairy farmers currently use and continue to adopt high quality animal care practices. Dairy farmers participating in the National Dairy Farmers Assuring Responsible Management Program, which is now in its fifth year, strive to care for and treat their animals with respect, training their employees to handle the animals in their care in ways that minimize stress. More than 12,000 dairy farm evaluations were conducted over three years to produce the report. Producer participation in the FARM program now includes more than three-quarters of the nation’s milk supply. As with all things there is always room for improvement, but our nation’s dairy farmers are far from being the “bad apples” they have recently been portrayed to be.  
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