Vet Shortage & New Conservation Programs

Vet Shortage & New Conservation Programs. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

As part of its effort to help address the shortage of food supply veterinarians, the American Veterinary Medical Association recently unveiled a revamped Food Supply Veterinary Medicine Web page. The new page is loaded with information about careers in food supply veterinary medicine, why it’s such a critical field and which states are being hit harder than others by the shortage. The number of veterinary school graduates entering food supply medicine remains stagnant, and this lack of growth has all the makings of a crisis. Few jobs are more important when it comes to food safety than that of the veterinarian. You can get more information at avma.org.

The Farm Bill includes new conservation programs that are currently under public comment. USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service’s Tom Christensen explains.

CHRISTENSEN: We also have some additional provisions, the Agricultural Water Enhancement Program and the Cooperative Conservation Partnership Initiative. These are both unique in that they allow us to use existing programs but to focus them on a geographic area such as a watershed and beyond just the normal programs such as equip we can bring additional resources in conjunction with partners to focus on a watershed based issue so some very important additions to this farm bill.

Now here’s today’s Washington Grange Report.

(GRANGE)

That’s today’s Northwest Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.