Resumen de Milk prices and welfare

• IT'S a coincidence, though not necessarily a happy one, that the Cattle Health and Welfare Group (CHAWG) should have published a revised Dairy Cow Welfare Strategy in the same month that concern about falling milk prices in the UK finally came to the fore: the CHAWG published an updated strategy outlining aspirations for improving the welfare of dairy cows in Great Britain on August 5 (VR, August 15, 2015, vol 177, p 162), just as the row about the fall in milk prices to their lowest level in five years, as highlighted by media coverage of farmer protests, was coming to the boil. Experience has shown that animal welfare can lose out when times are tough economically, and the hardship dairy farmers face as a result of the fall in prices will not make the job of improving dairy cow welfare any easier. On the other hand, it can be argued that it is at times like the present that this kind of strategy is most relevant. So far, the animal welfare consequences of the …