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RABDF Farm Health Planning Award 2010

4 October 2010

Stacey Douglas, a student studying at the University of Edinburgh’s Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, and Tom Percy, an FdSc Agriculture student at Duchy College have each received the RABDF Farm Health Planning Award sponsored by Ubrolexin, an awareness raising initiative for younger members of the industry. At a presentation at the Dairy Event and Livestock Show, The NEC, Birmingham, today Tuesday 7 September, Stacey and Tom were each awarded a £500 cash prize.

A certificate was presented to the two other finalists short-listed for the award: John Mukasine studying agriculture at Plumpton College and Kathy Hume studying at the University of Nottingham School of Veterinary Medicine and Science.

The award was introduced as part of the Farm Health Planning (FHP) initiative, a proactive approach to farm health planning in the cattle sector developed in the last four years by a group of farmers, vets and specialist advisors, working in partnership with Defra. Open to students studying agriculture, and to veterinary students, the entrants were required to prepare a 1,500 word essay demonstrating their understanding of proactive farm health planning on dairy and or beef units. They were asked to identify the current barriers to adopting such a strategy and how to overcome those issues in their quest to improve herd health and profitability.

The essays were judged by a panel featuring dairy farmer and RABDF Council member, Lyndon Edwards; veterinary surgeon, Andrew Praill and John Sumner, FHP co-ordinator. “Each of the finalists showed a good understanding of the issues for consideration and were not short of ideas for improving the uptake of proactive health planning,” commented Mr Sumner.

“However, Tom had the edge among the agriculture student entries because he demonstrated a clear understanding of the meaning of proactive health planning and the barriers to farmer uptake, while Stacey presented a well defined insight into the key role of the veterinary surgeon in working with farmers to get the benefits from FHP and improve animal health and welfare.”

Tom Percy receiving the Farm Health Planning AWard

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