Misguided campaign
OPINION: Last week, Greenpeace lit up Fonterra's Auckland headquarters with 'messages from the common people' - that the sector is polluting the environment.
“We’ve just established an automated link which allows us to notify Fonterra when a farm has completed their Animal Wellbeing Plan with their vet through WelFarm,” says WelFarm general manager Samantha Tennent.
“It means it’ll be one less piece of paper they need to gather when preparing for their assessment.
“And the plans are stored in the WelFarm portal so when farms do want to refer to them they can easily log in to find it, which saves sifting through emails or requesting another copy from their vet.”
WelFarm developed their Animal Wellbeing Plan template in 2021 in response to the updated requirements from Fonterra for the Co-operative Difference.
“We recognised we were in a unique position already connecting vets and dairy farmers through the wider WelFarm programme,” Tennent says.
“So it made sense to include a simple method to help them develop their Animal Wellbeing Plans and leverage their data further.”
The WelFarm programme is a framework for proactive herd health and welfare management for a dairy herd. It has a simple reporting method and provides regional and national benchmarking through the web-based platform that gives context to herd data. The programme supports the relationship between the dairy farm and veterinarian, helping vets provide tailored advice and support.
If a farm is using the wider programme some of their metrics feed into the Animal Wellbeing Plan directly which gives vets and farmers more information to discuss as they develop their plans.
“Having a consistent approach to develop plans is valuable for farmers, Fonterra and the wider sector and using our system gives peace of mind as our template is live and gets updated as Fonterra’s requirements evolve,” Tennent says.
“This saves any back and forth if any updates were missed.”
The WelFarm programme is available through a number of vet clinics across New Zealand and more clinics join regularly. Tennent encourages farmers to ask their vet if they are already part of WelFarm or if they would consider joining.
They are also looking at other potential connections to support automatic data sharing to reduce the administrative burden and give farmers even more value from their herd health data.
More information can be found on WelFarm’s website welfarm.co.nz
