Nuffield Scholarship 2021: Lucy Collins takes a global look at dairy

Lucy Collins has travelled to nine countries examining how dairy abroad regulates and promotes cattle health. Here’s what she found.

Dairy-directed welfare assessment programs that are fit for purpose have been put under the microscope by Lucy Collins, who has released her Nuffield Scholarship findings.

The southwest Victorian farmer and vet travelled to Canada, Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales), the Netherlands, Singapore, Ireland, Spain and the United States as part of a 136-day adventure to examine how other dairy nations approach cattle health.

Ms Collins benchmarked Australia’s existing animal welfare regulations against other countries in her report, released last week and available through the Nuffield website.

She found while the vast majority of dairy farmers have animal welfare front of mind, the regulatory framework lets the system down.

“My interest was piqued when I was practising as a vet in northern Victoria and a dairy client contacted me because their milk processor had implemented an animal welfare audit,” Ms Collins said.

“And they had some areas where they couldn’t pass the audit and they had to contact their vet to resolve the issues.

“It became clear pretty quickly that the program the processor was using was developed overseas, in a country where cattle are housed, and wasn’t particularly appropriate for conditions where the dairy farm is pasture based.

“As a vet and dairy farmer, I was interested in cow care generally anyway, and it was the first exposure to what I now know is a vast array of programs and audits for cattle welfare around the world.”

Lucy Collins is a vet and a dairy farmer in Dixie. Picture: Nicole Cleary

Ms Collins said transparency over animal welfare practices was a growing consumer trend that the dairy sector needed to respond to.

She said a visit to the Kipster poultry farm in the Netherlands highlighted how agriculture can meet altered consumer expectations.

“Kipster is neither organic nor free-range but it received a quality seal from the Dutch Society for Animal Protection,” she said.

“That’s due mainly to Kipster being open to the public, offering interactive activities and focused on agricultural education.

“There is so much great work in animal welfare and sustainability in Australian dairy and the Kipster visit made me think about the possibilities for improving public engagement.”