Irish vets can play a very significant role in supporting farmers expanding their businesses after milk quotas expire in 2015. However, to play the role effectively, veterinary will have to change.

At a recent XL conference vets were challenged to consider a Food Harvest strategy for Irish veterinary

John Berkery, chairman of XLVets, said: “Vets have made a huge investment in training and upskilling themselves.

However, we realise that this is not enough. We must convert our skills into a new range of services that will help farmers to grow their businesses.”

Providing a reactive emergency response service is no longer sufficient. Vets also need to be excellent data managers, so they can proactively work with farmers, preventing herd health problems and optimising farm output.

Bill O’Keeffe, chairman of Nuffield Ireland, urged vets to move beyond being service providers and to take on a development support role, especially for younger farmers and farmers not participating in discussion groups.

This would require vets building mentoring relationships with farmers for the purposes to help them achieve their long term farm development goals.

Throughout the event, vets were reminded that a one-size-fits-all service approach was no longer appropriate.

Roeland Wessels, veterinary consultant from Holland, advised vets on the importance of listening to farmers and tailoring services accordingly.

Throughout the event it became clear that farmers want their vets to do more, including providing advice on genomics, nutrition and grassland management.

Pat Dillon, head of Animal and Grassland Research at Moorepark, echoed this view and pointed out that Teagasc no longer has the resources to extend tailored on-farm advice to all farmers and that partnering with vets provides a way forward for Teagasc to continue to fulfil this part of its mission.

Luke O’Grady, UCD Veterinary School lecturer, reminded delegates that if vets are going to meet all these new demands they will need the systems and software to gather the relevant data and produce concise reports for each farmer in ‘three clicks of a mouse’.

Padraig Duggan, of XLVets, also emphasised the issue of time management, by saying that the standard of work currently undertaken by vets cannot be allowed to fall while making way for the provision of new services. “We must build while continuing to move,”he stated.

XLVets chairman John Berkery said that “the message is that veterinary has to work smarter so that it can offer pro-active herd health consultancy programmes alongside the emergency response services that farmers will continue to need.

“First and foremost we have to make better use of data. Then we have to craft tailored solutions from that data according to farmers’ needs and then we have to learn how to deliver those solutions to farmers in an effective manner,”he concluded.

*XLVets is a group of independent and progressive veterinary practices who are working together to achieve a better future for agriculture and veterinary in Ireland.