Abstract

ROMERO PENUELA, Marlyn Hellen  and  SANCHEZ VALENCIA, Jorge Alberto. EVALUATION OF GOOD LIVESTOCK FARMING PRACTICES ON CATTLE BEEF IN THE CENTRAL REGION OF CALDAS. Biosalud [online]. 2011, vol.10, n.1, pp.52-60. ISSN 1657-9550.

Objective. To evaluate the implementation of good farming practices in beef cattle farms according to current sanitary legislation. Materials and methods. Using Foot and Mouth disease vaccination records from the Comité de Ganaderos de Caldas, 100 farms from the municipalities of Manizales (n = 38), Palestina (n = 18), Neira (n = 39), and Chinchiná (n = 5), where were selected to apply a check list questionnaire to evaluate compliance to the sanitary and food safety requirements. Results. Seventy percent of the evaluated production systems were classified as extensive growing and fattening, the remaining 30% belonged to double purpose or breeding systems. Infrastructure compliance was found at an acceptable level (74 to 96%), animal welfare adoption (60 to 92%), animal health and biosecurity (15 to 74%), and storage (23 to 59%) at a medium level. Compliance in personnel (11 to 26%) and sanitizing procedures (4 to 35%) were found deficient. Conclusions. Greater implementation of good farming practices is needed, perhaps through the establishment of commercial and health incentives for their adoption.

Keywords : biosecurity; good farming practices; food safety; primary production.

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