Animal welfare assessment in farm assurance schemes

Assuring the consumer on animal welfare is a key objective for many UK farm assurance schemes. This assurance is usually delivered by ensuring producers adhere to standards which define many aspects of animal husbandry. Assessors currently use welfare assessment as a tool to identify non-compliances with the minimum resources defined in the standard. However current assessments are based almost entirely on the provision of resources and management consistent with good welfare, they give little attention to the outcome, welfare state itself. We describe an approach to the development of a reliable scheme for the direct assessment of welfare state. Even if this cannot be used for routine farm visits it should be able to be used to audit the impact of existing schemes on animal welfare and develop improved protocols for future schemes. We suggest that these should give increased emphasis to the management of health and behaviour.