A training program developed by the Western College of Veterinary Medicine (WCVM) to expand the knowledge of pig care assessors is helping to improve the accuracy and consistency of on-farm animal welfare assessments. 
In partnership with the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, the University of Saskatchewan and pork sector stakeholders, researchers with the WCVM created a systematic and robust training program designed to expand the knowledge base of animal care assessors and improve the accuracy and consistency of their pig care assessments. 
Dr. Giuliana Miguel Pacheco said on-farm animal care assessments need to be consistent to avoid the problems resulting from inaccurate assessments. 
This program provides a systematic method to train and re-train observers and observe their level of knowledge. 
“Providing these, we make sure that assessors receive the same level of training and we could know where their weaknesses or strengths are so further training if needed.” 
Pig care assessments verify animal care standards for the industry used for the quality assurance scheme of meat produced and sold by the Canadian industry. Pig care assessments can catch issues and provide feedback to producers for continual improvement, for example level of lameness. 
“Our assessors mostly look at animal-based indicators of welfare, so measurements we can collect by looking at the pig itself, not the housing facility. Examples of these indicators or measurements are cleanliness, how clean it looks, the skin, ear and tail lesions. They tell us of what the animal experienced in that particular environment.” 
Because the consistency of assessments tends to decline over time, it is good to do periodic re-training to maintain the quality and robustness of the collected data. 
The critical challenges that assessors may face are pig knowledge. They train people from pig naive and experienced assessors some missing indicators or overrated by the nice eye. The other challenge is the level of experience, so understanding the assessment expectations is essential. So for example, some people are more detail orientated, providing notes if needed. Everybody needs to know what to expect from a particular animal care assessment. 

Then there are the personal biases with implications that the data is not valid or robust, meaning that the advice provided about the condition of the animals may not be useful to the farmer. And if this is part of an assurance scheme, this is a risk, as a farm could get flagged with problems not accurately measured. 
This systematic and robust training includes the following approaches. A webinar on the first day explains the aims of the program and how to assess each indicator or measurement using pictures and videos and time for questions. This ensures everyone gets to access the same level of information. 
The second after the webinar, assessors complete an online picture assessment. This will test the assessor’s understanding and learning of the material provided on the webinar against the knowledge of an experienced assessor and themselves. 
And finally, assessors carry out an online video assessment that tests their knowledge assessing as they could do on a farm. A week after the webinar, assessors again complete the video and picture assessment to test if the knowledge and understanding are at the same level as the first day. If their consistency in assessment decreases, then a re-training session is available.  
He said the methodology of this training program could work and even be modified to any other animal care assessment to train and assess farmers, barn staff, and assurance scheme assessors. “Last year, lockdown events showed that, sometimes we may need to go remotely. So this methodology provides assessors with access to online training and assessment methods to keep their level of knowledge up to date.” 
For example, farmers or assessment program managers can access data assessors’ information to have a good accuracy level or recommend further training.  
“We expect that this training program could be part of a robust method to verify animal care standards for quality assurance programs; improving the QSC and consistency of the data is extremely important so producers make adequate animal care improvements. Additionally, the methodology proposed in this program could help to reduce the time and expenses involved with onsite training.” •
— By Harry Siemens