Livestock

Livestock Welfare Benchmarking Across Farms

Benchmarking welfare outcomes across farms enables identification of best practice and poor performers.

Key Facts

Welfare outcomes vary enormously between farms in the same system
Benchmarking requires standardised, validated welfare measures
The Welfare Quality framework provides a multi-criterion benchmarking approach
Benchmarking enables meaningful improvement targets and drives competitive improvement

Welfare Considerations

Without benchmarking, farms with chronically poor welfare outcomes cannot be identified or held accountable. Benchmarking enables producers, assurers, and regulators to distinguish genuinely good performers from poor ones, incentivise improvement, and set evidence-based targets. Aggregate benchmarking data also advances welfare science by linking management factors to welfare outcomes at scale.

What You Can Do

Support development of national welfare benchmarking databases
Advocate for mandatory welfare outcome reporting in assurance schemes
Choose products from assurers that publish aggregate welfare outcome data
Back research linking benchmarking to welfare improvement at farm level