A west Wales dairy farm featured in a television expose showing abuse of livestock by farm workers has had its membership of the Red Tractor assurance scheme terminated.

The BBC Panorama programme included undercover footage at Madox Farm, near Trelech, showing serious breaches of assurance standards and the law, demonstrating what Red Tractor describes as “a systematic disregard for animal welfare by those with a duty of care.’’

In its statement, Red Tractor, which assures more than 11,000 dairy farms, added: “The unacceptable actions of staff on one farm in no way represents the vast majority of UK dairy farmers or British agricultural practice.’’

Farmers were quick to condemn the abuse but also to defend the dairy industry’s high animal welfare standards, considered by many to be among the best in the world.

Taking to social media, Pembrokeshire dairy farmer Steve Evans wrote: “Don’t tar all farmers with the same brush. I’m as appalled as you are about the abuse on that farm and hopefully there will be prosecutions.”

Welsh dairy farmer Aled Jones, the newly-elected president of NFU Cymru, describes the programme as “a painful watch’’.

“The most painful part of it is that people will watch it and think that’s the way all farmers treat their animals when that is absolutely not the case. There are thousands and thousands of farmers who look after their animals like they are family members.’’

The footage captured the actions of employees but Mr Jones believes that the majority of people who work with animals do so because they enjoy it and are people who have empathy and treat animals well.

The programme suggested the poor welfare on show was the result of low prices and tight margins.

It noted that the Welsh farm in question sold its milk to Freshways, reportedly one of the lower payers.

Only a small minority of dairy farmers are on aligned contracts, a pricing system that uses a formula that reflects inputs such as feed and fertiliser.

These contracts are uncommon but Mr Jones says they demonstrate a model that does work and that these type of contracts, where farmers feed into the model with cost of production information, need to become more commonplace, even an industry standard.

“It is done in other countries, so there is a means of doing this, and it would put to an end the continual race to the bottom and pressure on farmers to produce cheap milk.’’

Lawyers for Madox Farm told BBC Panorama that if workers had abused cows, a disciplinary process would begin immediately. They added that the farm owner continues to invest in the health and welfare of his herd.