Veterinary advice: 3,200 vets agree: Dublin buiatrics conference a ‘wonderful success’
Their “informatics diet” included a choice of 33 plenary sessions, 219 oral presentations and hundreds of poster projects depicting the latest research on the welfare, management and food production from ruminant farm animals.
From the medical and surgical needs of the individual animal to the veterinary input in modern “mega-herds”, no stone was left unturned, regarding the effects that modern farming exert on public health and the environment.
Delegates voted the week to have been a wonderful success scientifically, logistically and socially, thanks to the Irish organising committee, the event managers, and the worldwide array of sponsors who were present throughout.
Cutting-edge research on the “hot” topics like sustainable agriculture, animal welfare, food safety and antibiotic resistance was presented within the concept of “One Health, One Medicine, One Environment”.
This slogan epitomises the fact that about 60% of human infections are shared with animals, and the planet is the shared home of all us animal species and our disease agents.
“One Health” is the framework promoted by the World Health Organisation in order to balance the increasing requirement for food while protecting public health and not damaging the planet.
One of the overriding messages is that the health (and thus the productivity) of the individual animal remains the basic building block of sustainable agriculture.
Farmers, as the custodians of those animals, are central to ensuring that healthy animals stay that way, while increasing production.
Disease prevention is all the more important as the trend toward larger farms with fewer workers is projected to continue.
Attending vets at the conference in Dublin were told of new ways to measure the nutritional status, production and health markers, so that they could identify and even predict threats to animal health and welfare.
This was followed by examples of best practice that enhance animal immunity against the myriad of disease agents that can be present but invisible on normal farms.
Dissection of many such health programmes continued well into the night long after the official sessions had finished.
Hopefully, “normal” patrons of some of Dublin’s hostelries were not too discommoded as the night air resonated with references to “gangrenous mastitis”, “parasitic pneumonia” or “teat dipping”, not to mention “crypto diarrhoea”.
If the individual farmer is critical to the success of the One Health concept, then the role of farm veterinarians is to work out with their client how best to apply the latest knowledge at individual farm level.
Both farm profit and food safety depend on each of them gathering information which guides their planning, and monitoring of their progress, or otherwise.
Individually tailored farm health plans are favoured rather than simply controlling one disease at the time.
This allows the farmer to prioritise which issues need to be addressed immediately, while being able to adapt should any “new” threat arise.
Irish herds are well positioned to use this approach, given our system of animal identification and traceability. However, we have some ground to make up if we are to benefit from this advantage. For instance, Ireland would profit from applying some of the measures used in our neighbouring/competing countries on the types and volumes of medicines used in food animals.
Lack of such records places us at a disadvantage, compared to countries with verifiable recording systems. Without such records, export outlets for our livestock produce will be increasingly restricted to the low value commodity markets.
Based on the contributions of Irish researchers at this conference, there is no doubting our ability to overcome that disadvantage, through sustainable farming that will restore profit to all of the agri-food sector, from high end produce such as infant milk formula and lifestyle foods, to basic commodities.
Just as the success of this conference was based on the application of expertise and ability, the same formula is our best chance to keep Irish agriculture in the vanguard of dependable food production.
