Audits: The Farm Scorecard

When people think of farms, they usually think of just a few cows, chickens hogs, and goats munching on some grass in a pasture.  If they think of commercial farming, they oddly think about someone in a suit calling the shots for "cheaper at any cost" or "just get them on the truck, no matter how many shots you have to give them."  Rarely do they think of the farmer in overalls having to make business decisions, and follow defined quality standards.  

I received a letter in the mail this week, stating that the packer we sell our hogs to is switching its auditing program.  Along with the switch comes upwards of 200 pages of new paperwork to read through and implement in the coming months.  It isn't necessarily a bad change, but it is hard to make the adjustment from one system to another.

(Early Morning visiting the pigs.. 20 F outside 68 F inside.)

We have been conducting formal audits and checks on our farm for approximately 10 years.  This isn't to say we didn't do our own in house checks on a regular basis, but we never looked at those checks as a way to provide information to our customers.  Our current program has our managers do a weekly animal handling a care audit, and a yearly audit of each farm location done by myself.  I visit the farms much more often of course, but that  is my formal check of the facilities.  We then get 3rd party audits randomly from our packers, who come in to review our records, and make sure that we are doing what we claim to be doing.  Anytime we are out of line, we have 30 days to correct the problem with a written plan, and by implementation.  Sometimes this requires a re-audit.

On top of the audits, we do training for each person that works with pigs.  That includes all of the people working directly on the farm, plus our Amish contract barn owners and their families.  In all, 4 months out of my year is spent with a focus on training.  After the training is completed I visit locations weekly to make sure that things stay up to our standards.  Training focuses on recognition and treatment of illness, daily management practices, moving animals, how to identify and euthanize animals properly, and what animal abuse looks like.

It may not be perfect, but every training, every audit, and every farm visit gives us the opportunity to improve how we care for the animals.  Even though it makes me nervous to have an audit, it also shows that we are doing everything that we can to ensure the pigs are raised in a safe, and conscientious way.