Verifying legislative and customer requirements utilising animal welfare quality assurance

Abstract

The development of animal welfare in quality assurance (QA) programs and audits for several of the livestock industries is briefly described, with emphasis on the ability of these programs to provide a framework to manage and demonstrate compliance with the various legislative and commercial animal welfare requirements in Australia. There is a clear role for these programs to provide the framework for compliance with legislative standards in a similar manner to the commercial standards set by customers of the livestock industries. However, options for implementing legislation in this manner in Australia are still under consideration. QA programs need to be acceptable to the community, be abl..