COVID-19 may have prevented attendees of the American Association of Swine Veterinarians (AASV) annual meeting from gathering in person this year, but the fellowship, education and brainstorming continued. Here are a few quotable moments from the conference so far:
“If we are consumed by the immediate problems around us, we are not looking at the horizon and we certainly are not navigating. If we’re merely steering around obstacles, we’re not navigating to a destination.” --Jerome Geiger, DVM, PIC, in the Howard Dunne Memorial Lecture Navigating the Future Together
“If the pig wins, the client wins and ultimately your practice wins.” --Chase Stahl, DVM, Fairmont Veterinary Clinic, in Win Your Team’s Trust for the Pig to Win
“If you are faced with a challenging problem, I challenge you to understand it more in depth. Read and learn. Then re-read and re-learn again about a problem you are faced with.” --Jeremy Pittman, DVM, Smithfield Hog Production, in the Alex Hogg Memorial Lecture, Enhancing Your Brand: The value of lifelong learning, continuing education, and teaching to the swine industry
“Because when we’re works in progress, and when we have strong grit and resiliency, we’re always learning.” --Elizabeth Strand, director, Veterinary Social Work at the University of Tennessee, in Your Right and Responsibility to Be Well
“Can we eat our way out of climate change? No way, Jose.” --Frank Mitloehner, professor at the University of California Davis, in The 2050 Challenge: Satisfying the global demand for animal protein without depleting our natural resources
“While I don’t minimize our simultaneous need for robust response and mitigation plans, our biggest focus now more than ever, should be prevention [of African swine fever]. Because the only way to avoid this significant agricultural economic hardship, potential animal and human welfare implications and other consequences of even one diagnosis of ASF in the United States, is to keep it out in the first place.” --Emily Byers, DVM, Merck Animal Health, in Gaps That Exist to Prevent African Swine Fever Introduction into the United States and How Can We Address Them
“Leaders are valuable, but so are followers.” --Gordon Spronk, DVM, Pipestone Veterinary Services, in Life’s Molding of Our Leadership Approach and How to Keep Talking During a Crisis
“Help put a face on agriculture. And be prepared to talk about some of these tough issues. Don’t wait until you’re asked – be prepared with your talking points.” --Kay Johnson Smith, president and CEO of Animal Ag Alliance, in Farmers Under Fire
“We in veterinary medicine and swine production as a whole have been reluctant to speak about the welfare challenges that we have on our farms. Instead, we sometimes treat welfare studies as a subject of threat versus an opportunity to improve what we do. If we take some of the previous work of Stan Curtis and others and study it in more detail, I think we’ll find more opportunities to improve not only the welfare of pigs on our farms but also the productivity and financial outcomes. And thus, it is a study of opportunities and lost opportunities.” --John Deen, professor at the University of Minnesota, in Lameness: Relationship to longevity and pain
More from Farm Journal’s PORK:
Put PRRS Strain 1-4-4 Lineage 1C in Perspective
AASV Foundation Invests $100,000 to Fund Four Swine Research Proposals
