AUSTIN, Texas and LARAMIE, Wyo., Oct. 19, 2021 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Global Animal Partnership (G.A.P.), one of the largest animal welfare standards and labeling organizations in North America, has announced its new dairy standard and a partnership with HerdDogg. HerdDogg's proprietary Animal Traceability Platform will make it easy for dairies and auditors to conduct animal outcome assessments using G.A.P. scoring tools throughout the certification cycle, enhancing the overall process and enabling G.A.P. to provide benchmarking.
G.A.P.'s multi-level standards impact the welfare of more than 400 million farm animals on nearly 4,000 farms worldwide by taking into consideration each animal's health and productivity, natural living environment, and emotional well-being. G.A.P. is now bringing its multi-step standards to dairy, providing an accessible and implementable option for producers, companies, and brands.
The new dairy standard covers the animal's entire life (breeding, calves, heifers, lactating herd, and dry cows), and allows for a variety of production systems (barn, pasture, lots) with specific requirements for the animals across each.
Partnering on this initiative, HerdDogg is providing G.A.P. a structured tool on its livestock management platform to integrate a digital solution to the on-farm animal assessment scoring requirements of the new standard.
"Our partnership with HerdDogg is allowing us to realize our long-term goals of having producers and auditors conduct animal assessments and compile that information into a benchmarking format. The HerdDogg platform gives producers, our certification partners, and G.A.P. a much easier and more efficient way to collect, submit, and collate all of that data and translate that into meaningful outcomes," said Anne Malleau, executive director of G.A.P. "This standard-specific technology can make both the producer and the auditor active participants in reporting and allows for mid-certification assessments so that we can really understand our impact."
As part of this partnership, HerdDogg is providing a structured mobile interface for producers and auditors to do in-field animal assessments for scoring criteria from G.A.P.'s new dairy standard, which:
● enables farmers to capture more accurate and efficient animal assessments;
● reduces reporting time;
● integrates updates to scoring tools directly into G.A.P.'s reporting and auditing process.
"HerdDogg's partnership with G.A.P., the very first animal welfare program to adopt our technology, establishes a new standard for the digital capture and analysis of animal welfare metrics," said Melissa Brandao, founder and CRO of HerdDogg. "We are thrilled to be a part of this as a significant step towards the overall improvement in farm animal care and reporting accuracy while reducing a producer's time spent completing paperwork."
Animal data is captured by the producer and transmitted in real time to the HerdDogg cloud-based Animal Traceability Platform, which can be accessed from any device, including smartphones and desktop web browsers. This way, operators can augment animal records with their own insights and reporting.
G.A.P. is currently recruiting additional farm partners to adopt the new dairy standard.
About Global Animal Partnership
G.A.P.'s mission is to drive meaningful, continuous improvement of farm animal welfare through multi-level standards development, application, and verification across the supply chain. Currently impacting over 400 million farm animals and growing, we envision a world where farm animals are treated with compassion, managed to a science-based standard, and permitted to express their natural behavior, and where consumers are empowered to make informed purchasing decisions based on transparent animal welfare criteria and labeling. For more information, visit globalanimalpartnership.org.
About HerdDogg
HerdDogg is passionate about livestock. Our innovative data platform sits at the intersection of agtech, the internet of things, and global food security. Our patented DoggTags and DoggBone, together with our Animal Traceability Platform, help producers make more money from every animal they raise. The HerdDogg system enables animal tracking, welfare monitoring and traceability via a cloud-based platform and an easy-to-use mobile application. For more information, visit herddogg.com.
Media Contact
Tim Cox, ZingPR for HerdDogg, 650-888-6116, [email protected]
SOURCE HerdDogg
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