Farm Animal Welfare

Cattle Welfare Benchmarking Between Farms

How farm-level welfare benchmarking can drive improvement across cattle production systems.

Key Facts

Welfare benchmarking compares farms on standardised outcome measures including lameness, BCS, and lesions
Farms in the lowest-performing quartile show substantially worse welfare outcomes than median farms
Sharing anonymised benchmarking data with underperforming farmers produces measurable improvement
Benchmarking programmes embedded in vet-farmer relationships show higher adoption than external audits

Welfare Considerations

Benchmarking reveals the true distribution of welfare outcomes across a sector, highlighting both what is achievable and where intervention is most needed. Rather than raising minimum floors alone, benchmarking creates aspirational targets and social proof that better performance is possible.

What You Can Do

Support national welfare benchmarking programmes for cattle through your vet or assurance scheme
Advocate for benchmarking data to be shared as part of welfare improvement strategy
Choose dairy products from farms enrolled in welfare benchmarking with published performance data