Abstract
Simple SummaryIn many cases, different animal welfare inspections are taking place at an animal farm over time, as the farmer has to comply with both the legislation and with various private standards. In this study, we compared official inspections carried out by CAB (the County Administrative Board, a governmental agency) with private inspections carried out by Arla Foods (a private company) on dairy farms in one Swedish county. For example, we looked at seasonal effects and compared the incidence of different non-compliances. This study shows that long time periods were sometimes allowed for correction, that follow-up systems are diverse, and that there were differences in the inspection result between CAB and Arla due to different focuses during the inspections. Dirty dairy cattle were, however, a common non-compliance found by both CAB and Arla. Tie-stall housing and winter season (Dec–Feb) were risk factors for non-compliance, while the risk was lower for both CAB and Arla to find non-compliances at organic farms compared to conventional farms. We conclude that the presence of both similarities and differences between different control systems underlines the need for transparency, predictability, and clarity of inspections.Farmers often have to comply with several sets of animal welfare regulations, since private standards have been developed in addition to legislation. Using an epidemiological approach, we analysed protocols from animal welfare inspections carried out in Swedish dairy herds by the County Administrative Board (CAB; official control of legislation) and by the dairy company Arla Foods (private control of Arlagården standard) during 2010–2013 in the county of Västra Götaland. CAB and Arla inspections were not carried out simultaneously. We aimed to identify common non-compliances, quantify risk factors of non-compliance, and investigate if non-compliances were based on animal-, resource-, or management-based requirements, as well as determining the time period allowed for achieving compliance. Non-compliance was found in 58% of CAB cases, and 51% of Arla cases (each case comprising a sequence of one or several inspections). Dirty dairy cattle was one of the most frequent non-compliances in both control systems. However, the differences in control results were large, suggesting a difference in focus between the two systems. Tie-stall housing and winter season (Dec–Feb) were common risk factors for non-compliance, and overall organic farms had a lower predicted number of non-compliances compared to conventional farms. The presence of both similarities and differences between the systems underlines the need for transparency, predictability, and clarity of inspections.
Highlights
The majority of European citizens believe that the welfare of farm animals should be protected [1].The goal of protecting animals is based on an increase of political activity nationally and within the EU, with the adoption of legislation and action plans promoting the protection and welfare of animals [2]
Out of the 328 farms that were inspected by both control bodies during the four-year study period, 47% were inspected by both County Administrative Board (CAB) and Arlagården private standard (Arla) within the same 6-month period and 14% of the farms were subject to CAB and Arla cases at the same time
A larger number of inspectors were involved in the official CAB inspections than in Arla inspections, and CAB had a slightly higher proportion of cases with non-compliance than Animals
Summary
The majority of European citizens believe that the welfare of farm animals should be protected [1].The goal of protecting animals is based on an increase of political activity nationally and within the EU, with the adoption of legislation and action plans promoting the protection and welfare of animals [2]. The majority of European citizens believe that the welfare of farm animals should be protected [1]. Animal welfare concerns have led to the development of private initiatives by non-government actors [3], for example, private standards initiated by different stakeholders in the food chain [4]. More or less voluntarily, to certify their production according to different kinds of private standards [4,5,6,7]. In practice, a farmer has to comply with several different animal welfare regulations and receive several types of inspections. Previous studies have demonstrated a trend towards an increasing number of inspections from various authorities and private bodies [8]. The presence of dirty cattle wasthe themost mostcommon common non-compliance in in thethe
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