Food Animal Vets Not Short on Ideas

By Patty Khuly, VMD

I had all sorts of ideas planned for this column, but dinner somehow intervened.

Plans changed because of the slew of e-mails I received after my column on future food animal veterinarians. Then there was the clincher: A personal foray into backyard animal agriculture and how one slaughtered “pet” rooster blew up my blog, not to mention my family life.

A young Elvio and Dr. Patty Khuly. (Courtesy of Dr. Khuly)

No surprise on either front. Though both camps would have impressed me more with their anti-slaughter arguments had they claimed a vegan lifestyle.

But first to your mail, which included an eye-opening plethora of interest in my approach to our profession’s food animal practitioner shortage. This support was tempered impressively by some expressions of near-violent disagreement; I’m glad I live nowhere nearby this small contingent lest my mailbox risk fire-bombing.

In case you missed this apparently incendiary column, you can catch up in a flash with this: A dearth of food animal veterinarians plagues us. Issues raised by swine flu and other emerging threats have highlighted potential deficiencies in veterinary medicine’s ability to deliver, particularly with respect to food safety.

In the column, I expressed the opinion that the cultural issues often cited by both veterinary students and might-have-been food animal practitioners are largely to blame for the dearth of food animal vets, not so much the economic factors so often implicated. These include, but are not limited to, quality-of-life issues, effective mentorship and animal welfare concerns.

One of the last photos of Elvio. (Courtesy of Dr Khuly)

In doing so, I incurred the wrath of a small contingent whose take on me is best summed up as “pansy-ass, hobby-farming, bleached blonde suburbanite.” But I came away with additional fodder when some food animal veterinarians wrote to add more items to my list of “why veterinary students don’t want to become food animal veterinarians.” Others told me tales of their personal frustrations (and I paraphrase for emphasis) as “lackeys of the industrial animal agriculture machine.”

Digesting these messages, it became clear to me that not only does an addressable cultural divide exist between companion animal and food animal practitioners, but divisions are apparent within the food animal profession itself with respect to many of the issues I raised: the macroeconomic, environmental and welfare concerns, in particular. 

An Unsettled Future
Make no mistake: I have an agenda, which I assume is what my detractors most disliked about the aforementioned column.

Veterinarians like me are on the cusp of a trend that pits average citizens against industrial animal agriculture. We dog-ear Michael Pollan’s “Omnivore’s Dilemma,” raise backyard flocks, milk goats, grow vegetables and do the math on solar panels.

Call us “enviro-welfarists” or call us “bleeding hearts.” Hurl invectives if you must. But then answer me this:

Q. Who do you think applies to vet school these days?

A. More than likely it’s someone with my values.

Yes, this is a vision of a future in which veterinary medicine advocates for the welfare of animals and caters to the desire to achieve more environmentally sound, safer alternatives to the kind of intensive animal agriculture our culture has grown dependent on. And it’s reaching a larger audience than you might imagine.

It’s a movement that has some legs veterinary medicine would be unwise to reject out of hand. Not while the Obama garden flourishes, energy consumption and greenhouse gas guidelines are being proposed, the popularity of college internships in organic farming graces the front page of the Sunday Times and the animal welfare contingent (reasonable and unreasonable alike) grows ever politically able.

Also consider all those new faces flanking Fido the cadaver. And the contingent of food animal veterinarians grown tired of being forced by industry to cave to their hard-driving, animal-undermining, low-balling demands on our profession.

In short, it’s not too drama-queenish to suggest that our profession risks being torn asunder by this emerging cultural divide.
Our small animal, food animal, agriculture industry disagreements must be resolved if we are to maintain our unity as professionals charged with providing appropriate stewardship for all our animal species.

Backyard Farming
Back to the slaughter.

There’s something very basic about growing my own food that makes me feel like I missed my calling, however dilletante-ish you consider my efforts.

Sure, I may be a pansy-ass, hobby-farming, bleached blonde suburbanite, but at least this one knows how to muddy her heels as she kills her rooster. <HOME>

Patty Khuly, VMD, MBA, is a small-animal practitioner in Miami and a passionate blogger at www.dolittler.com. She earned her veterinary degree in 1995 and her business degree from Wharton in 1997.

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Food Animal Vets Not Short on Ideas

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Having lived in a metropolitan area while attending veterinary school I can say it was fun at the time when I was 25. Now having lived in a rural area and practicing mostly large animal medicine for 26 years I would not go back. The lifestyle is something many new graduates aspire to. There is a great feeling to knowing your neighbors and all your childrens teachers. The veterinary community such as AABP, AVMA and many state legislatures are addressing the percieved "Food animal Vet shortage" and doing a great job. Much of the reason for the concern is to protect the nations food supply from foreign animal diseases and to ensure that the U.S. continues to have the safest food supply in the world. I take great exception to some of Dr. Khuly's remarks about the desirability of an urban lifestyle over a rural one. There have been great efforts made to improve animal welfare in the dairy and meat industry. We see some of the greatest abuses of animals by ignorant owners who seek no veterinary input. As for technology we provide many of the same options to our food animals as the pets. These include but are not limited to ultrasond, X-rays, Chemistries, blood counts,surgeries, pain control and dietary management. Organic farming is not the panacea many think. Carbon footprints are less for well-managed dairies with methane digesters and water purification systems. Cow comfort on many of these "industrial" dairies is excellent and in our area are all family owned. Organic dairies neglect basic needs of animals such as pain-killing drugs and effective parasite control for flies. lice and internal parasites. tom, glenwood city, WI Posted: 7/29/2009 9:24:31 AM Dr. Khuly, In response to both your articles about lack of food animal vets, I think you need to understand that agriculture in general and all the people associated with it, have been pushed into a small sector of the land area, social area, and financial area of this country. Before you disregard "large production animal systems" or any other large scale farming operation, maybe you (and other Americans) should read some journal articles that contain actual research. A recent article in The Journal of Animal Science (Vol 87, No 6, pp 2160-2167, June 2009) looked at the basic inputs and outputs of dairy cows in 1944 vs 2007. The results were quite different than the media and the general public believe to be true about modern agriculture "ruining" the environment. As cited in the article, modern dairy farming practices to produce the same amount of milk require only 21% of the animals, 23% of the feedstuffs, 35% of the water and 10% of the land. The carbon footprint of the modern dairy is only 37% of the footprint of a 1944 dairy for the same amount of milk. If you are "for" the environment, as you say you are, you should realize that farming using technologies in the 21st century greatly reduces the environmental impact of dairy farming compared with 1944. The general public constantly argues that modern farming is horrible for the environment and the animals involved, and they think it was so much better "back in the day." I would strongly argue that the environmental impact is less and that animal treatment is the same or better for modern dairies. Modern farmers have been forced to grow more food on less land for less money with more regulations because of the American demand for cheap food and the take-over of farmland by suburban development. If people like you and your followers really want to save the farms, the animals, and the land, you need to understand the problems facing modern farmers, the true environmental impact of modern farming, and be willing to pay more than 15% of your annual income for food, like the rest of the world. Kate, Mason, MI Posted: 7/27/2009 4:17:50 PM