Shropshire agriculture student receives RABDF Farm Health Planning Award 2009
21 December 2009
Agriculture student, Mark Price, of Pontesbury, Shrewsbury has received the RABDF Farm Health Planning Award sponsored by Ubrolexin, an awareness raising initiative for younger members of the industry.
A student studying BSc Hons Agriculture at the University of Reading, Mark received a £500 cash prize for his award winning essay which demonstrated his understanding of proactive farm health planning on a dairy unit. He identified the current barriers to adopting such a strategy and how to overcome those issues in his quest to improve herd health and profitability.
“I’m really pleased to win the award,” said Mark. “The competition led me to think a lot harder about farm health planning as a practical and cost effective way of keeping the herd healthy and profitable.” He added: “It’s something I’ll definitely think about more when I have the opportunity after graduating next year, hopefully to achieve a specialist dairy farm manager’s position.”
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,
“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 national FHP initiative co-ordinator John Sumner and one of the three judges. “However, Mark had the edge among the agriculture student entries; his very practical approach impressed the judges in how he identified the benefits of implementing a farm health plan on his family’s farm in conjunction with the farm vet.”
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. Congratulations to all the finalists both agricultural and veterinary in a year of exceptional entries.”
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