Verifying legislative and customer requirements utilising animal welfare quality assurance

Abstract

The development of animal welfare in quality assurance (QA) programs and audits for several of the livestock industries is briefly described, with emphasis on the ability of these programs to provide a framework to manage and demonstrate compliance with the various legislative and commercial animal welfare requirements in Australia. There is a clear role for these programs to provide the framework for compliance with legislative standards in a similar manner to the commercial standards set by customers of the livestock industries. However, options for implementing legislation in this manner in Australia are still under consideration. QA programs need to be acceptable to the community, be able to meet all customers’ requirements and demonstrate to government authorities that animal welfare standards have been met. QA programs that include animal welfare will be better accepted when their ability to deliver comprehensive benefits and continual improvements in animal welfare have been formally evaluated. Additionally, the impact of animal welfare QA programs will only be fully realised by better demonstrating their ability to deliver verification of legislative and commercial standards, benefits to industry in terms of efficiency and production and consequent acceptability by customers and the broad community. To date, such QA programs have only begun to meet all these needs.