PAACO – The standard of excellence in animal welfare auditing

Spring 2016 Newsletter

Executive Director Comments

“Reflections” Our Vision...

Our vision is to be the authority on animal welfare auditing.

Our Purpose/Mission...

PAACO promotes animal welfare through auditor training and audit certification.

Calendar

MAY 17-18 – Meat Plant Training, Schuyler/Fremont, NE

JUNE 8-10 – International Symposium on Beef Welfare, Manhattan, KS

JULY 19-21 – Poultry Training, Fayetteville, AR

OCT. 11-12 – Meat Plant Training, TBD

OCT. 13-14 – NAMI Handling Conference, Kansas City, MO

Mike Simpson, Executive Director As you may recall through some of your interactions with me last year, I announced and have worked with the board of directors on a plan for my retirement and smooth transition to a new executive director. The board engaged in a search process last year and have now named a new staff person (Collette Kaster, see accompanying article) to take on the administration of continuing to move PAACO forward into new areas of service with newer methods of delivery. Thus, since this is the closing out of my “watch” on PAACO’s programs, I want to reflect a bit on the past and what I think the future holds for the association. As my grown but still young sons remind me, “Dad, that is in the past and not as relevant to us today.” However, my reply is that history does provide some value so that mistakes are not repeated and successes can be built on. That said, though, I don’t want to dwell in but reflect on the past. I came on part-time in 2005 with the goal set by the board to get PAACO relevant and meet the needs for training that were

growing exponentially. PAACO needed to provide action where “the rubber was meeting the road”, particularly in meat plant and poultry welfare training. These were areas that were experiencing great variability in auditor performance which in turn had negative financial impact on the business of producing product for customers. Consistency among auditors was just too variable. Trainings were implemented for both those sectors in 2006 and I would look back and say that what we are offering today doesn’t resemble those initial events. Continued on page 2

The standard of excellence in animal welfare auditing P.O. Box 31 • Redfield, IA ­50233 • Phone: ­402-403-0104 • Website: ­www.animalauditor.org

PROFESSIONAL ANIMAL AUDITOR CERTIFICATION ORGANIZATION

PAACO was formed in 2004 when leaders of the

founding organizations identified a need to promote and advance sound animal auditing through standards for auditors in education, training and ­experience.

Trainings have progressed with constant improvement in mind. Both trainings remain highly sought after to attend and score high satisfaction marks from trainees. Originally, the founders thought that the focus and attendees would be third party auditors. However, those of you who have attended classes in the last few years know that the training participants are very diversified and include all different stakeholders in this area. Additionally, the interest and participation have expanded internationally as exhibited by the number of countries represented in the certified auditor pool. Also surprising is the participation by academia who have taken these programs and incorporated them into their classrooms. Ultimately I think now the measure of success is where suppliers and customers have either a written or spoken protocol that audits in facilities have to be performed by PAACO certified auditors. Another area I find in looking back over the years and stemming from the training is the “excuses’” made for audit tools while trying to train using their criteria and standards. The original trainings spent significant time with trainees arguing that what the audit called for wasn’t appropriate or could not be measured well. I remember that to shut the arguments down we had to keep a flip chart and write the issue down and say we would forward it on to the appropriate party. We had to deal as best we could with what we had to work with and needed to move on. This then spawned the audit certification service where PAACO set criteria of what

we would certify as a certified audit tool. It was somewhat of a slow start as audit authors were a bit reluctant to subject their mostly organizationally rooted and controlled tools to a third party peer review against those PAACO-developed criteria. However, with broadminded leaders and some push by customers, tools were submitted to gain the credibility stamp of a third party - PAACO - who used independent expert welfare input. Switching to the future, one of the most significant actions engaged in by the board last year was to embrace and go through a strategic planning process where they documented what this organization would focus on and do in the future. This, in my opinion, was extremely important as the directors coming from different backgrounds needed some focus and agreement/unity on how they saw this organization. It would also be very important in seeking and attracting the ‘right’ next executive director. They did a good job and have a more definitive road map and goals for the directors and staff to work towards in the present time and next few years. There are exciting things I see on the horizon. Those include: • Expanded areas of training - sectors of swine production, feedlots and dairy production will need addressing sooner than later. • Newer methods of modern delivery of training - a simple example is distance learning, which will be integrated first in the upcoming swine training. Also more extensive use of video in trainings due to access to facilities for biosecurity reasons. • More international training opportunities.

• Increased recognition of PAACO as a brand and what it represents. These items are obviously now under a different staff watch. However, I want to say that I have greatly enjoyed my 11 years of contributing to PAACO’s growth and development. I personally have gained from my previous career association experiences by a greater breadth of exposure and interaction with different species (especially poultry, of which I had none), and the people I have met from international, suppliers, customer and allied industry types. In addition, the individuals who have served on the PAACO board of directors and instructors in the trainings have been a blessing to work with and share personal insights. I look forward to a big change - retirement. In a way it is a bit scary as over my 45 years of association work I have been a bit of a workaholic but believe I have moderated in my maturity (note: not “old age”). What am I going to do? I don’t exactly know but I can’t get far from animal agriculture which has been in my blood from before college. My wife, Becky, and I have about 20 purebred cows that are my hobby as we have had them for over 40 years. We both enjoy them but hope they will not be too confining to enjoy retirement. I included her in the picture with this editorial as I know many of you have interacted with her especially during re-certification and registration processes. She has picked up many areas I could delegate as PAACO’s activities grew. Other family is two married sons in their mid 30’s and one 2-year old granddaughter about 30 minutes from us. Always feel free to stay in touch.

PROFESSIONAL ANIMAL AUDITOR CERTIFICATION ORGANIZATION

­ AACO P Officers/Directors Chair:

Jennifer Walker, DVM, PhD Dean Foods

Vice Chair:

Angela Baysinger, DVM, MS Merck Animal Health, USA

Secretary:

It was a chain of educational and career

Theodore Friend, PhD Texas A&M University

Treasurer:

Dave Sjeklocha, DVM Cattle Empire, LLC

Directors: Ken Anderson, PhD North Carolina State University Paul A. Beck, PhD University of Arkansas

Marcia Endres, PhD, DVM University of Minnesota D. Dee Griffin, DVM, MS University of Nebraska Christa Goodell, DVM, PhD IDEXX Laboratories David Hermes, DVM Perdue Farms, Inc. W. F. Owsley, PhD Tarleton State University Kellye Pfalzgraf, DVM Farmington, AR David Pyle, DVM David Pyle, DVM, LLC Yvonne Vizzier Thaxton, PhD University of Arkansas Cassandra Tucker, PhD University of California - Davis Collette Kaster, MS

experiences that led Collette Kaster through her professional development and ultimately her involvement with PAACO. The northwest Iowa native majored in animal science at South Dakota State University, where her participation in the meat judging program sparked an interest in meat science. After obtaining her undergraduate degree, she worked for John Morrell prior to enrolling in the master’s program at the University of Nebraska, where she coached the meats judging team. Her first role after graduate school was at PIC (swine breeding/genetics company) as their first meat scientist working on areas from pork quality and composition and the initial phases of livestock animal welfare. She was working with animal handling and its impact on stress and pork quality right at the time when Dr. Temple Grandin was just beginning her innovative work in plants and on farms.

Karen Christensen, PhD University of Arkansas

Executive Director:

New Executive Director - Collette Kaster

Collette continued her career with Premium Standard Farms (PSF) just when it was getting started with its first plant. In the 13 years spent there, she helped build PSF’s integrated model. Since 2007 Kaster has been with Farmland Foods, now Smithfield Foods, most recently as senior vice president of quality technical services and livestock procurement. In that role she was responsible for hog procurement, quality assurance, animal welfare, meat quality research and quality management systems such as PVP and SQF.

Collette went through PAACO’s meat plant auditor training program in May 2008, becoming certified, and then served as a trainer. The major advantage of auditor training, she believes, is that it provides all aspects of the industry with the same base. “We all start from the same set of expectations,” she says. She is pleased with how widespread and accepted it has become at all levels, from packers to customers to third party auditors and government. “Our trainings are able to impact people from so many different parts of the industry,” Kaster states. On a professional level, Kaster is involved with key industry activities such as the animal welfare committees of both the North American Meat Institute (NAMI) Continued on page 4

PAACO – The standard of excellence in animal welfare

and the National Pork Board (NPB). She has served on both the NPB’s food safety committee and Pork Quality Solutions taskforce. She has been a member of the National Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Inspection and is past president and a Fellow of the American Meat Science Association. Additionally, she has been a participant in many research trials resulting in publications in the areas of meat science, animal welfare and pre-harvest food safety and has given several invited lectures to organizations.

Collette met her husband, Dennis, in the pork industry, where he worked for 25 years. They live near Kansas City, MO, where they are raising their two daughters, Sam and Sophie. The girls, ages 12 and 15, are involved in sports and life on the farm with horses and cattle. When not doing that, Collette enjoys travel, reading, movies and all things outdoors.

Collette has a passion for agriculture and the people that work together to provide food for the world. “I am looking forward to leading this organization and to helping to shape the animal care and welfare initiatives for all species of livestock. The care of food animals has never been more scrutinized and PAACO serves a key role in the certification of audits and auditors to fill that need,” says Kaster.

The dates are July 19 - 21 and the specific logistics of trainers, sites, sponsorship, etc. are being worked on. We learned last year that biosecurity related to High Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) has caused us to modify the demonstration portion of this training. We will still be adjusting to that as we continue to develop the program and in particular are trying to utilize video more.

Swine Industry Audit. This audit covers all production phases through and including transportation to slaughter where NAMI’s meat plant handling and welfare audit picks up.

2016 Trainings In the calendar of events, you will see listed the trainings for meat plant and poultry auditors for 2016. Depending on the size of our class and training room, we do open up the class to previously certified auditors to take the lecture portion for refresher and CE credits. The best thing to do is e-mail PAACO if you’re interested in this. We do use an e-mail blast to auditors in the geographic area where the class is being held.

Meat Plant

Two U.S. trainings are currently planned for this year. There are no plans for a Canadian based training this year as past experience has shown that about every other year serves that market. However, the U.S. trainings are attended by people from many different countries. The May training is currently full - wait list only. Information can be found on the website.

Poultry After two years in North Carolina, this

year’s training will be in Arkansas with the cooperation of the University of Arkansas.

Like the meat plant training we don’t plan to offer this one in Canada this year as it seems that every other year also serves that market adequately. If you or others you know are interested in this training, sending an email to PAACO is the best way to get the information for the training and registration sent to you

when available. Swine

If you have followed any of the news about validating welfare on swine farms this past year you will know that the swine industry and their stakeholders have embraced what is known as the Common

PAACO has been and is currently working with an outside curriculum development team to finish up the development of a training for auditors or other interested parties based on this audit instrument. That process has taken longer than anticipated but projections are for it to be completed by early summer and trainings offered after that. The training will follow the model of our current trainings but we have a portion of the training (Swine 201) which covers basic swine husbandry related to criteria in the audit that will be delivered and tested as a prerequisite through distance learning. Best advice if interested in this training later this year is to monitor the website or industry announcements of its availability.

We welcome your ideas on subjects to discuss in future newsletters! E-mail Collette at [email protected]

PROFESSIONAL ANIMAL AUDITOR CERTIFICATION ORGANIZATION

Check out our web site: ­www.animalauditor.org

Cattle Feedlot

Late last year, the Canadian-based National Cattle Feeders Association submitted a cattle feedlot audit instrument to PAACO which we independently reviewed and certified to our minimum audit criteria. The audit was developed through collaboration with North American packers, producers and customers. The audit is nonproprietary and the hope is that it could be embraced by more than just Canadian feedlots. In this process, this coalition approached PAACO to establish a certified feedlot welfare auditor training.

PAACO has approved the development of the training and after working with the coalition we have established a curriculum team and individuals to develop the various parts of the materials for training. It is too early to project when the course will be available but most liekly in early 2017.

International - Brazil PAACO has a partnership with a company called World Quality Services (WQS)

primarily based in Brazil. We worked with them to utilize our training materials and

model for cattle and broiler slaughter auditor training and certification. The Brazilian class is taught in Portuguese by instructors we brought to the U.S. and trained in our classes. These classes utilize the same curriculum as in North America, that is, lecture material, plant demonstrations, testing and shadowing. Trainings in these two areas will be offered in 2016. If interested, see contact information on the website.

Audit Certifications PAACO’s simple mission includes quality audits. More and more over the years that PAACO has been involved in training auditors, it was recognized that the audit tools also could be improved. Thus, PAACO established minimum criteria that an audit must meet to gain our certification status. Those criteria can be found on our website. The board has refined those minimum criteria since this service began several years ago. Briefly, the audit certification process involves an interested party submitting their tool to be reviewed against our criteria. A three-member, species-specific panel is organized to do the review and report their findings to the author for corrections as needed. PAACO’s committee and board review and approve on recommendation of the review panel.

By checking PAACO’s website, you can see the audits that are certified. These audit tools are re-reviewed annually to maintain current welfare standards and criteria and the PAACO certification. The currently certified audits are: • Meat Plant (cattle, swine & sheep) North American Meat Institute • Dairy - Validus • Swine - FACTA, Common Swine Industry Audit • Cattle Feedlot - National Cattle Feeders Association • Turkey - FACTA • Broilers - FACTA, Perdue Foods PAACO currently has additional audit tools in the review process.

The standard of excellence in animal welfare auditing

Paying with a Credit Card? PAACO has recently changed credit card processing platforms and the new processor requires additional information from what was previously required. We now need the name of the cardholder and their street address and ZIP code. There is a space on the current recertification form for this information. When submitting CE hours, please make sure you are using the newest form – Form 0316. It is available on the website under “auditor forms”. Also note that PAACO now accepts American Express as well as Visa and MasterCard.

PAACO • P.O. Box 31 • Redfield, IA 5 ­ 0233 • Phone: 4 ­ 02-403-0104 • Website: w ­ ww.animalauditor.org

PROFESSIONAL ANIMAL AUDITOR CERTIFICATION ORGANIZATION

Check out our web site: ­www.animalauditor.org

Auditor Recertification It seems that occasionally there is some Also remember online and distance ‘stress’ on the part of certified PAACO learning can qualify for CE. Here are a auditors in finding and meeting the few tips: continuing education (CE) requirements. • Use Google to search for online and Certified auditors have a wide diversity in distance learning programs. their professions and employment. • Only husbandry education applies; no food safety For those that have DVM’s or PhD’s • Shadowing trainees does not count there are requirements for licensing or for CE, but working with another certification and thus various conferences certified auditor does. • Some caps/maximum on qualifying where meat animal husbandry subjects hours: are presented. However, we do have plant o 4 hours with another certified or production people also who maintain auditor certification. The encouragement by o 8 hours of distance or online their employers for CE is quite varied and learning sometimes not very strong. PAACO believes its requirement for CE If you are in a position where you believe is valid for advancement of welfare in CE is hard to obtain, talk about it with your the meat animal industry, thus the 12 employer, as your improved knowledge is hours per year requirement. PAACO also a benefit to them. has quite a bit of flexibility in how CE is earned. That being said, it must be through educational activities related to meat animal husbandry and/or auditing techniques.

What is the Count? Occasionally I have the need to pull some statistics together, specifically the numbers and status of auditors. These change weekly as trainees become certified, new classes are held and the recertification of current auditors goes on. As of this newsletter, here are some stats you may be surprised by: Meat Plant (8 countries) Certified auditors – 278 In training/shadowing – 64 Poultry (11 countries) Certified auditors – 370 In training/shadowing – 160 Dairy (U.S.) Certified auditors – 6 South America - cattle and broiler slaughter Certified auditors - 12

PAACO • P.O. Box 31 • Redfield, IA 5 ­ 0233 • Phone: 4 ­ 02-403-0104 • Website: w ­ ww.animalauditor.org

PROFESSIONAL ANIMAL AUDITOR CERTIFICATION ORGANIZATION

2016 PAACO Officers Jennifer Walker, DVM, PhD, of Dallas, Texas, was elected chairman of the board of directors of PAACO at the group’s December annual meeting in Kansas City. Director of Dairy Stewardship for Dean Foods, Walker served as the organization’s vice chairman the past two years. She succeeds Terry Mader, PhD, of Mader Consulting, LLC, Gretna, Nebraska.

“I am proud to serve PAACO,” said Walker. “I am excited about helping implement our new strategic plan which will ensure that PAACO remains the authority in animal welfare audit certification and auditor trainings.” Named vice chairman was Angela Baysinger, DVM, Bruning, Nebraska, health assurance veterinarian for

Merck Animal Health. Rounding out the officer team are Secretary Ted Friend, PhD, animal science professor at Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, and Treasurer Dave Sjeklocha, DVM, operations manager of animal health and welfare at Cattle Empire, LLC, Satanta, Kansas.

Member Organizations As a bit of history, PAACO was originally formed in 2004 by four professional organizations who had the vision that welfare auditing was going to become more important as a part of the business of meat animal production. Within a year of that idea gaining some traction with those four original organizations, the American Association of Avian Pathologists joined in to what you have recognized as our five member organizations.

PAACO will now be made up of seven organizations who will appoint 2 directors each to the board of directors. The three new organizations are in the process of naming their directors. The official member organizations are: • American Association of Avian Pathologists • American Association of Bovine Practitioners

• American Association of Swine Veterinarians • American Dairy Science Association • American Registry of Professional Animal Scientists • American Society of Animal Science • Poultry Science Association

Due to some restructuring of one of the original organizations - Federation of Animal Science Societies (FASS) - the official member organizations have expanded to seven. While originally FASS was made up of American Society of Animal Science, American Dairy Science Association and Poultry Science Association, that one membership has been replaced by the three independently.

PAACO • P.O. Box 31 • Redfield, IA 5 ­ 0233 • Phone: 4 ­ 02-403-0104 • Website: w ­ ww.animalauditor.org