KENTUCKY
Jan - Feb 2017 w w w. k y d a i r y. o r g
Milk Matters Kentucky Dairy Partners Annual Meeting
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Are the Priorities for Your Time, Dollars and Resources in the Best Place? Find out more on page 8
New Year Brings in New FARM Rules for Dairies By Jennifer Hickerson
F
armers Assuring Responsible Management Program (FARM) was created by the National Milk Producers Federation. FARM is analyzed every three years and updated as needed based on research, changes in the industry and consumer wants. The program is reviewed by an assortment of industry professionals such as veterinarians, farmers, leaders from cooperatives that are participating in the program and academic professionals. The last review was completed in 2015 with those changes being implemented starting in January 2017 under the FARM 3.0 version. Below are some of those changes: • Veterinary Relationship - You will need a Veterinary of Record document signed by you and your vet each year. You will need to document veterinary treatments that are done on your farm. • Employee Training Records - Cow Care and Ethics Agreement needs to be signed by all employees that are non-family. Each
employee should go through some type of training pertaining to their responsibilities on the farm. A training log that describes the type of training with the date of training needs to have both the employees and trainers signature on it. • Tail Docking - Routine tail docking is no longer permitted as of January 1, 2017. • Animal Care Commitment Form - Provide a general overview of animal care to livestock on your farm and how others are expected to treat and care for those animals. Be sure each employee understands and signs the form. FARM is third party verified. A major change in the 3.0 version involves accountability. In previous versions there were little follow-up done on dairies. If a farm hasn’t implemented a portion of the main requirements by the time their FARM evaluation occurs they will need to complete a corrective action plan and have up to a year for the needed corrections. There are also additional provisions that must be completed in the FARM 3.0 version besides what is listed above. If a farm does not have some of these completed by the time the evaluation is done a continuous improvement plan will be started. The evaluator will
Cont’d on pg. 17