Systematic collection and transparent reporting of cattle welfare data enables accountability, identifies worst-performing farms, and drives improvement through benchmarking and market pressure.
Welfare data collection that remains internal to farms or industry bodies lacks the transparency needed for genuine accountability. When consumers, retailers, and policymakers can see welfare outcome data by farm or by sector, market and regulatory pressure can drive improvement. Anonymous aggregate data is useful for research but named farm data drives competitive welfare improvement. The dairy industry's existing data infrastructure could support significantly more transparency.