The five-year strategy identifies six key welfare goals.

The new UK Dairy Cattle Welfare Strategy for 2023 to 2028 has now been launched. It is an update of a previous strategy and has been developed by industry professionals who have collaborated through the Ruminant Health and Welfare (RH&W).

The objective of the strategy is to help the UK dairy industry show progress in animal welfare by 2028. It has support across the four UK nations.

The strategy identifies six key welfare goals:

• Thriving cows – ensuring all dairy animals are bred, reared and cared for to thrive in all systems
• Healthy feet – ensuring a proactive lameness management plan is in place on every UK dairy farm
  
• Comfortable cows – maximising cow comfort in housing and at pasture
  
• Appropriately nourished cows – ensuring a healthy body condition throughout the year
  
• Healthy udders – continued improvements to udder health to reduce cases of mastitis
  
• Positive welfare – moving towards ‘positive welfare’ by providing an environment that allows animals to exhibit normal behaviours such as curiosity or play 
  

The RH&W says that it will support the industry to make progress in these six key areas.

RH&W vice-chairman Gwyn Jones said: “To enable the UK dairy industry to compete internationally, the sector will need to be able to provide evidence of progress on welfare. By doing so across the four nations, the UK will be positively differentiated from other countries.”

The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) has committed to helping the industry publish an annual progress report. The report will capture data to evidence the outcomes achieved by the strategy’s stakeholders, and show the actions taken to achieve the six welfare goals. 

AHDB senior animal health and welfare scientist Dr Jenny Gibbons said: “These actions will be reported by groups of key industry stakeholders working together to gather evidence of industry achievements and progress on the six goals.”

The key stakeholder groups have been split into the following categories: farm assurance; farmers; government; processing supply chains, including markets and hauliers; retail supply chains; research organisations; commercial organisations and veterinary surgeons.

Mr Jones said: “The wider industry from government officials and assurance scheme providers to dairy farmers and processors, must wherever possible work together to support progress on the strategy and support data collection to demonstrate industry progress.”

The RH&W also plans to create welfare strategies for the whole UK ruminant sector. It says that strategies for sheep and beef cattle will follow in due course.