Attitudes towards the Canadian quality milk program and use of good production practices among Canadian dairy producers

To harmonize good production practices (GPP) for dairy producers in Canada, the Canadian dairy industry has developed and is implementing a program called Canadian Quality Milk (CQM). A postal questionnaire was administered to all Canadian dairy producers enrolled in dairy herd-improvement organizations in 2008 (n =10,474) to investigate their attitudes towards the program and to establish baseline information on their use of GPP. The response percentage was 20.9% (2185/10,474). Two-thirds of producers (67.6%) reported participation in CQM and 61.4% of these indicated that the requirements were easy to implement. Most producers (85.0%) reported the use of cats as a pest-control method in their barns. For dead-livestock disposal, 65.0% and 38.0% indicated use of a collection service and burial, respectively. Nearly 40.0% of respondents indicated that they purchase replacement cattle, and somatic cell-count score was the main health indicator considered before purchase. Over 70% of producers reported that they clean and disinfect maternity, calf and weaned-calf pens, while only 34.1% and 53.1% reported that they provide visitors and employees, respectively, with clean clothes and boots. Through latent-class analysis, five groups (classes) of producers with distinctive patterns of reported use of GPP were identified. These were labelled as “minimal”, “sanitation-only”, “employee-visitor hygiene”, “typical” and “ideal” user groups, with 11.1%, 23.8%, 20.2%, 37.1% and 7.7% of respondents, respectively. Respondents in the “ideal users” group had a higher probability of reporting the use of each GPP and were more likely to have completed an educational course in food safety compared to respondents in each other group. They were also more likely to have a herd size in the uppermost quartile (>65 cows) and report participation in CQM compared to each other group except the “employee-visitor hygiene users”. The greatest differences were observed when compared to the “minimal users” group for completion of a food-safety course (OR=2.81), participation in CQM (OR=2.39) and having a herd size of >65 vs. <36 cows (OR=3.04). Targeted education of dairy producers on the importance of various GPP (e.g. detailed health assessments of replacement cattle before purchase) for infection control is warranted.