Rural veterinary service may change

Press, 25 February 1977, Page 14

Rural veterinary service may change

The form of veterinary practice in rural areas in New Zealand could change in the future. There were a number of indications of this at the annual conference of the New Zealand Veterinary Association held in Christchurch at the end of last week and the beginning of this week.

Both the retiring president of the association, Mr R. J. Dun, of Wellington, in his presidential address, and his successor, Mr M. E. A. Cartridge, of Waikari. in comments immediately after his installation, referred to the decline in rural practice in New Zealand, as in other parts of the world, and the developing concept of a planned animal health service for farms that would work to prevent diseases occurring, with resultant gains in production and financial returns for the benefit of the farmer and indirectly the country too. Mr K. Moller, of Hamilton, gave the conference a report on an experiment with dairy farmers in the Waikato in which for three production seasons a comparison was made between a group of 18 farms where a planned animal health and production service was applied and another 15 similar properties where no such service was used. His conclusion was that such a service was economically sound and suitable for New Zealand farming conditions. Mr Dun told the conference that there was no doubt that some rural practices v ere not employing replacements for professional staff who left and a few practices had regrettably terminated employment of staff because of redundancy. The uncertainty about the future was not dispelled by what had happened in Canada, where there was such a drift of veterinarians from rural to urban practice and other forms of employment that financial incentives had had to be introduced by most, if not all provinces, to re-establish and maintain rural practice. More recently, and closer to home, he said that an article in the December, 1976, issue of the Australian Veterinary Journal showed that over the last six years the number of veterinarians in rural practice had increased by only 4 per cent, and more significant since the beginning of 1975, when the peak was reached, there had been a decline of 22 per cent. While there were decided differences in fanning and animal production in these two countries as compared with New Zealand, Mr Dun said that surely there was cause for a note of caution here. It was imperative that the veterinary service in rural areas be maintained and the farmer in remoter areas — and remoteness in these days of high transport costs did not mean a great mileage — should not be penalised because of relative distance or the stimulus for greater production be depressed. Mr Dun suggested that the Veterinary Services Council should be given sufficient money and the authority to use it in some form of'subsidy scheme as had been recommended in the association’s submissions to the Parliamentary committee considering the Veterinary Services Bill and as had been recommended by the association to the Ministers of Agriculture and Fisheries and Transport. In urging a restructuring of the Veterinary Services Council to meet modern needs, Mr Dun said that one of the things that the council should do in the future was to continue and expand, where necessary, its role in planned animal health programmes by fostering further trials and research and ensuring that the knowledge and expertise accumulated was disseminated through the Veterinary Faculty and to members of the profession seeking guidance in this type of practice- ’ Mr Dun said that he applauded the planned animal

health programme approach to veterinary practice and the change in the attitudes of members of the profession that made this possible. In the past, he said there had been a reluctance to join in a multi-disciplinary approach to problems of the animal industry and he suspected that some of this attitude still lingered. It could almost be called a form of arrogance, which possibly stemmed from a situation where until recently it was possible for the veterinarian to pick and choose what form- of practice he might follow, and where and under what conditions. Happily for the profession and the industries it served the trend now was in the direction of being part of a team involving technicians in various fields, members of other professions and the clients themselves. This sort of approach was exemplified by the planned animal health schemes in the Waikato, the Bay of Islands, the

East Coast and other schemes throughout the country. It was pleasing to see that people such as bacteriologists, radiographers and business managers were being brought into practices, which must lead to greater efficiency. Immediately after taking office Mr Cartridge, said that the emphasis in the immediate future in the veterinary field would be in the area of rural practice. because of the decline through which it had been going. For economic reasons, including the effects of inflation in costs and petrol costs, farmers were not using veterinarians for urgent service to the extent that they had done in the past. The accent now and in the future, he said, was on the planned animal health service, which was a system of disease control based on a planned programme leading to increased production. In this, he said he saw other people like farm advisers, economists and agronomists working with veterinarians. In describing the experiment he had conducted in the Waikato for the Veterinary Services Council in the 1973-74 to 1975-76 production seasons with a farm advisory officer and veterinary technician, Mr Moller said that on the 18 farms receiving the intensive planned animal health and production service attention had been given to the particular areas of pasture management, feeding efficiency and breeding efficiency and disease control. The owners of herds had been asked to weigh their cattle three times during

the dry period and also young stock frequently from weaning to maturity, and the aim was also to have 80 per cent of the cows calves within a spread of six weeks around a median calving date. The fixing of the latter date was one of the more important decisions to be .made on dairy farms. These he saw as important tools in improving pasture management and animal nutrition. Towards the end of the experiment, he said that farmers had found no trouble in reaching the target weights that had been set for young stock.

The disease control aspect of the programme was aimed at diseases which had a herd-wide effect, and these included mastitis control, facial eczema, ryegrass staggers and trace element complaints.

At the outset he said that production on the farms receiving the programme and those that were not was similar, but production had increased by 12 per cent on the experimental farms compared with the controls and net profit by 13 per cent, but this had not shown up as quickly as the production increase.

Mr Moller said that production had been 12.7 kg of milk fat higher per hectare in the first year, 19.1 kg in the second and 25.4 kg higher in the third year on the experimental farms.

And while financially the experimental properties had been a little worse off in the first year due to the expense of the animal health programme and also the cost of culling, the return was $34.40 per hectare higher in the second year and $62.70 per hectare higher in the third year.

Animal health costs had been higher on the experimental farms by $7.77 per hectare in the first year, $10.58 higher in the second but only $5 higher in the third year. In answer to a question, he said that during the experiment production on the highest producing farm had risen from 411 kg per hectare to 525 kg and on the lowest from 191 kg to 237 k

•g. Mr Moller suggested that the charge per farm to support the service would probably have to run into $7OO to $lOOO. and on the 18 farms concerned in the trial he said that he expected about 11 would! have carried on had they, had to pay for it. ! While he believed that! there was now enough : information available for the establishment of com-: mercial animal health sen, vices, he said he felt that research should still be, directed to the exact: methods used as it was im-j portant that veterinary: consultants should use only proven methods in any, such service.