HAZARD ANALYSIS AND CRITICAL CONTROL POINTS | HACCP Total Quality Management and Dairy Herd Health

Abstract

Animal health management and product quality control have evolved from a solely curative veterinary practice, where disease or quality problems were addressed once the problem had arisen, to the application of veterinary herd health and production management programs, where herd performance was monitored in an operational setting in order to better prevent disorders. Herd health and production management programs are much more focused on early disease detection, herd monitoring and risk assessment of health, reproduction and productivity disorders. More recently, more emphasis is put on the issue of quality of the product (e.g. milk and meat) and the production process. The latter includes aspects like animal health status and animal welfare, and environmental issues. There is an increasing tendency that livestock production is integrated into food production chains, from the farm level up to the consumer level. An important element in such production chains is that each link should provide the next link with safeguards regarding the product delivered. Certification of products and production processes is hereby introduced. This article addresses the different quality control concepts as applied at dairy farm level. Moreover, it discusses how quality management at farm level can be integrated with herd health management.