layout: true background-image: url(../../images/slide_background.jpg) background-size: cover class: middle --- # How to engage with farmers ### Medium Quotes --- ### “We encourage them to be nice people. Farmers don’t look down on young vets, female vets. He’s more worried that you’ll look down on him. Treat farmers as equals, give them respect. Listen. Slow down. Ensure the farmer knows you’re listening to him. Appreciate the knowledge that they have. They just want to be able to trust you. They all know that if someone can’t do it, they phone up the practice and someone else will do it, we don’t charge extra for that.” --- ### “If you can explain your actions and reasons for what you’re doing, e.g. last night, I had a horrible caesarean and said, “well I need to do this because of this”. If you explain to the farmer as you’re going on, your reasons, I think you can stop that negative impact. Don’t get me wrong, if you find a TB reactor sometimes their reaction is quite explosive but it’s nothing personal, it’s the heat of the moment. --- ### “Being able to talk to people about news / rugby / football / I’m a Celebrity – it’s great that you know the science, but sometimes it’s being able to have that bit of chat that will get the farmer to place their trust in you.” --- ### “TB testing, dehorning, castrating… on some farms, especially big farms when you’re doing routine PDs especially if you had a range of them, you have to concentrate on what you’re doing but if you can talk about other things at the same time, seems to keep the farmer thinking rather than worrying about what you’re doing as well. So, it’s a distraction for the farmer as well.” --- ### “I was told many years ago, if they offer you a brew, never say no. They’ll not offer again. It’s quite important because over that cup of tea, you can learn a lot more, get accepted a lot more. And it gives you time to chill down before you get in the car and set off.” --- ### “To try and listen to the farmer. Take his advice. Listen carefully to what he’s saying, what he thinks. Keep him informed about how you’re making your decisions. Discuss how you make decisions with him and, if it’s all agreed then you do it and it goes wrong, well it’s all agreed.” --- ### “I’m two years into this current job so I don’t have a real long-term relationship with these farmers whereas some of my colleagues have been here 5, 10 years – the bosses really know them. So, in those situations (difficult) I’d go and chat with one of my senior colleagues who maybe know the chap far more personally than I do and I’d go and have a chat with them -see what they think.”