Risk-based model for dairy herd welfare: field data collection

The Green Deal and the Farm to Fork strategy highlighted the relevance of higher animal welfare standards in future EU agricultural policy. One of the foreseen activities is to link the CAP financial support to Member States (MSs) with welfare indicators; however currently there are no simple, reliable indicators of welfare that can be easily collected across the EU to identify farms at risk of poor welfare. Mortality has been suggested as a possible indicator but used alone it is not a sufficiently sensitive welfare proxy. EFSA has developed a risk-based model for the farm-level assessment of dairy cow welfare which considers additional variables alongside mortality. This model has the potential to be used for EU dairy welfare monitoring, but it requires testing with data from commercial herds prior to application. This project aims to carry out data collection activities in the field of dairy cow welfare on-farm based on the risk-based model developed by EFSA. The ultimate goal is to test (and if needed, optimise) the risk-based model to provide a basis for future monitoring dairy cow welfare in the EU.