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Dairy cows 'suffering' in the drive for cheap milk
Dairy cows are suffering to pay for cheap milk, according to Government advisers.
The Farm Animal Welfare Council suggests penalising farmers for lame cows and calls for a national system for recording lameness, udder disorders and other health indicators.
The FAWC suggests a target lifespan of eight years for dairy cows – two more than the current average – and wants the industry to spend more on training to help achieve it.
It says farms have become "heavily reliant on immigrant staff who have had limited training and whose first language is often not English". It also notes a shortage of specialist vets.
Its Opinion On The Welfare Of The Dairy Cow acknowledges these problems and others have been exacerbated by low milk prices. But its solutions amount to more inspection of farms.
A FAWC "opinion" is a short report to update ministers without a full formal inquiry. This one was prompted by the European Food Safety Authority calling for a common code of practice in dairy farming.
The EFSA report attacked "Holsteinisation" – meaning the spread of breeds which will produce milk at detriment to their own health.
The FAWC does not name Holsteins but does touch on some of the arguments. It says it can be misleading, for various reasons, to simply count the number of lactations a cow goes through before it is culled. But declining fertility is a more reliable cause for concern and there is evidence of that.
FAWC says: "Cows of high genetic merit for milk production need a high level of management to ensure good nutrition, avoid extremes of body tissue loss and hence be fertile."
It accepts genetic selection has changed, in response to criticism, to emphasise health as much as productivity, and this will help in the long run.
But like EFSA, it actually spends more words on lameness and mastitis – seen as measures of the farmer rather than the breed.
There has been no improvement in either since 1997.
Holland has a quality assurance programme which excludes milk from severely lame cows, on the basis of an EC regulation that requires milk to come from cows "in good health".
And the FAWC suggests: "The government or farm assurance bodies could interpret legislation in a similar fashion."
Martin Burtt of Glaisdale, near Whitby, chairman of the regional NFU dairy board, said: "While FAWC's final conclusion is that dairy cow welfare has not improved significantly over the past decade, FAWC does acknowledge that welfare has, nevertheless, improved – a crucial point when dairy farm profitability has been marginal. Responsibility for improving animal welfare lies with the whole supply chain."
What the FAWC says
"There were 1.9 million dairy cows on 16,200 farms in the UK in 2008, with an average herd size of 126 cows and an average yield of 6,908 litres per cow per lactation.
"Compared with 1997, this represents a 20 per cent decline in cow numbers, a 43 per cent decline in the number of dairy farms, a 26 per cent increase in herd size and a 28 per cent increase in milk yield per cow.
"In 1997, the average gross margin was 933 per cow. This had fallen to 696 per cow in 2007. Many farmers have been unable to invest in welfare or have trimmed expenditure on preventative medicine."
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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