Benchmarking welfare performance against peer farms creates accountability, identifies best practice and drives improvement across sectors.
Welfare benchmarking creates the competitive and social dynamics that motivate improvement. Farmers who discover their lameness rates or mortality are above average for their sector type have a powerful incentive to investigate and address the causes. Benchmarking identifies outlier farms that may need additional support or scrutiny. Published sector benchmarks over time reveal whether welfare is improving or deteriorating across the industry, informing policy responses. The most effective benchmarking combines regular data collection, anonymous peer comparison and actionable guidance on achieving improvement.