FarmCheck Program

FarmCheck Program. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

Tyson Foods is launching a new program called FarmCheck - to audit how animals are treated at livestock and poultry farms that supply the company. Tyson Foods President and CEO Donnie Smith says the company is made up of ethical, responsible and compassionate people - and this effort lines up with Tyson’s core value to serve as a steward of the animals entrusted to it.

SMITH: We know more customers want assurance that their foods been produced responsibly and we think two important ways to do that are by number one, conducting on-farm audits while of course also continuing, number two, to research ways to improve how farm animals are raised. See, we know that the farmers that supply us are the best in the world and I think these audits are going to verify that. But if we do find problems then we want to work with the farmer to fix those problems right away.
 
Right now - Tyson works with more than 12-thousand independent livestock and poultry farmers - including five-thousand family poultry farmers - three-thousand family hog farmers - and four-thousand family cattle farmers. Tyson has maintained an Office of Animal Well-Being for nearly 13 years - and that’s where FarmCheck comes in.

SMITH: The FarmCheck program has already essentially started on a trial basis on some of the hog farms that supply us. Auditors are checking things like the animals access to food and water, the proper human interaction with the animals on the farm and how the workers on the farm are being trained. We’ll be expanding FarmCheck on into the future. We’ve said by 2014 that we’ll also include chicken and cattle farms in FarmCheck. To our knowledge this initiative goes beyond what other major companies are doing. It covers chicken, cattle and hogs and it will focus on the overall animal treatment, not just one stage of livestock production or animal housing.
 
Other plans for Tyson Foods includes developing a new Farm Animal Well-Being Research Program to review current research and fund and promote additional research the company believes will lead to more animal raising methods improvements.

SMITH: We want to continue to identify and study the critical points from the breeding of the animal all the way to harvesting where the quality of life for the animals can be improved. And then use those results to make a difference. We know that content farm animals are healthier and at Tyson Foods we want healthy animals. Ultimately we want people to know that at Tyson we care enough to check on the farm and we’re determined to find better ways to care for and raise healthy animals.

That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.