layout: true background-image: url(../../images/slide_background.jpg) background-size: cover class: middle --- # Advising Farmers ### Long Quotes --- ### Quote 1 --- ### “At the moment, I’m quite a senior vet I’ve been doing it a long time, so I do a lot of farmer meetings. So, I’m trying to educate them on TB … and just trying to re-engage farmers in that they can do something to control TB and I find that really satisfying. They come in to a meeting and their body language, arms folded, stern faces; “what’s this woman going to tell me about TB”! And actually to see them change, their bodies open up. *(cont. ...)* --- ### And they really are engaged in what I’m saying. And that actually, they’re doing a lot good health planning for other infectious diseases. But TB was always something that was done TO them and seeing them actually realise there is stuff I can control within this disease and I shouldn’t just be relying on government controlling that.” --- ### Quote 2 --- ### “… informal meetings with farmers rather than it just being about one animal, one sick cow so if it was not based on that decision and it was more a farmer / vet social time, talking about current issues or … I suppose it’s also breaking down that … what I’ve realised is that some farmers will have a huge amount of knowledge about certain areas - husbandry and things that we can learn from – *(cont. ...)* --- ### so it’s trying and change that perception that we have to know everything. Because you feel a little bit that we’re supposed to know everything about their industry, everything about how to raise sheep properly, but in fact, we can’t be experts in everything, we come from a veterinary perspective and we can learn from them.” --- ### Quote 3 --- ### “I like doing farmers meetings, doing teaching. It’s really the big thing for me, having the time and getting a lot of people in a room and having conversations. That’s what I find the most rewarding in the job, definitely. About that, I think it’s the facilitating social interaction for the farmers. *(cont. ...)* --- ### I like getting lots of people who otherwise wouldn’t see each other into a room together. I find that quite rewarding, in itself, just outside the teaching. Allowing that interaction is really nice to see and I think they really enjoy it.” --- ### Quote 4 --- ### “Helping farmers to find a good outcome to a situation. Either giving them negative results (which are good) or enabling them to access things. I deal a lot with TB breakdown so helping them to get a licence, e.g. to sell cattle or to bring them on, gives me more satisfaction than saying “no”. *(cont. ...)* --- ### As I get older, I’m getting more conscious that a negative reply to someone has a negative impact on them. And I can identify with them and if I was in that situation, I would feel devastated. Things like, if I was discussing biosecurity and I could suggest something that I’d spotted, and it gives the farmer a light bulb moment and they think, “oh yes, I could easily do that” then that gives me satisfaction. *(cont. ...)* --- ### I’ve suggested something that might help. I like helping people so anything that goes against that now, as I’ve got older that has a negative impact on me, so anything that results in a positive outcome for the animals and the farmers makes me happy.”