Quality control on dairy farms with emphasis on public health, food safety, animal health and welfare

Consumer concern about livestock production methodologies is increasing over the last decades due to various outbreaks of food-borne zoonoses and animal diseases. Quality assurance programmes in the different production chains have been installed by industry to counteract the problems occurring. The primary producers, like the dairy farms, are not formally comprised in such programmes. Yet, quality control at dairy farm level goes beyond the quality control of the product milk alone. For better safeguarding food safety and public health, as well as animal health and welfare the whole production process on the dairy farm should be addressed. In this paper, quality control according to the concept and principles of HACCP is dealt with. More particularly health and welfare are addressed, while the approach of the Dutch dairy sector is used as an example. It is concluded that based on developments within the dairy sector as well as at the EU political level, it can be expected that the application of HACCP-compatible programmes on the dairy farms will be conducted in the near future. This application will help in identifying and managing the quality hazards and risks occurring in the production process on dairy farms, and in providing the consumer with more certainty about the quality of products of animal origin.