US farm groups push for federal-level animal welfare regulations

But Mr Papp told Farmers Guardian there was a need to ensure uniformity across state lines on animal welfare issues.

“Certainly from a Farm Bureau perspective, and from an animal care perspective, we do not support having a patchwork of individual states having different regulations,” he said.

“We think there needs to be, because of commerce and agriculture moving across state lines, a national programme.

“There will be a move on this as we negotiate with the EU on trade, and there are some who would like us to have the same animal welfare standards here.”

One practice which does still take place in some states is cattle tail docking, a procedure which has been criticised for causing phantom pain, preventing cows from being able to remove flies and affecting their ability to communicate with herd mates.

Tails docked

On Keiffer Dairy Farm, a fifth generation family farm in Hastings, Minnesota, cows had their tails docked up until last year for ‘cleanliness’ reasons and the protection of workers in the milking parlour.

Due to consumer pressure, creameries and cheese processing plants are now restricting the practice, but most of the time this works on a ‘recommendation only’ basis.

Bret Otte, a livestock consultant on the Keiffer farm, said: “There is nothing federally enforced yet, but the cheese plants are saying they would rather not have you do it and it is a welfare thing.

“Here in the US, California pushes on every consumer issue. It is illegal to do in California, they cannot dock tails and they push the rest of the country to go that way.

“It will eventually probably be more so enforced, but right now it is just recommended not to. Maybe eventually the federal government will jump in a little bit more, but as of right now, they are still leaving it up to states, because that is how consumers are pressuring things.”