from left, Robert Palmer, Mike Davies representing Mark Price, RABDF president, Lady Byford, chairman, Lyndon Edwards, Rachel Mather, Sarah Ritter, Steve Williams
Rachel Mather, a student studying at the University of Bristol Veterinary School and Mark Price reading agriculture at the University of Reading 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, Stoneleigh Park, Coventry on Wednesday 16 September, Rachel and Mark were each awarded a £500 cash prize, and the universities they represented each received £500 towards a farm health planning project.
A certificate was presented to the two other finalists short-listed for the award: Robert Palmer studying agriculture at Plumpton College and Sarah Ritter studying at the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, Edinburgh.
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 three years by a group of farmers, vets and specialist advisors, working in partnership with Defra. Open to students studying agriculture, and this year for the first time 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, Mary Mead; veterinary surgeon, Andrew Praill and John Sumner, FHP initiative co-ordinator and FHP project manager at the Dairy Event and Livestock Show. “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, Mark had the edge among the agriculture student entries because he identified the benefits of implementing a farm health plan on his family’s farm in conjunction with the farm vet, while Rachel demonstrated how the veterinary sector can work together with farmers to successfully embrace and implement the concept of farm health planning.”
Steve Williams, cattle business unit manager of Boehringer-Ingelheim Vetmedica, manufacturers of Ubrolexin the product sponsor of the competition added: “Once again, we are delighted to sponsor this important part of Farm Health Planning. The competition this year has been extended to offer veterinary students the chance to demonstrate their views on how to engage in the Farm Health Planning success story. Congratulations to all the finalists both agricultural and veterinary in a year of exceptional entries.”