While their education starts in a classroom, University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine students learn very valuable lessons in the field—in many cases, on farms.  

Minnesota’s production farms are teeming with opportunities for students to put their skills to the test, whether they’re providing medical care to animals or conducting research to improve and protect their health. 

Throughout the state, producers and veterinarians are also critical partners in research and outreach efforts led by the college’s faculty and staff. These collaborations yield vital data that can shape everything from the timing of medical treatments to disease mitigation efforts to vaccine development.

“Over the years, I think we've worked very hard at building relationships and building trust with producers and veterinarians,” says Montse Torremorell, professor and chair of the Department of Veterinary Population Medicine. “We care about what happens in the rural areas of Minnesota, and we do the best we can to make sure we are helping.”

Real-world learning

For future veterinarians seeking to specialize in food animal medicine, visiting production farms and facilities like the John Fetrow Dairy Education Center is vital for gaining hands-on experience that will inform their careers. 

These locations provide real-world settings with opportunities and challenges that students learn to navigate to provide care. Students complete clinical training rotations focused on animals that provide food and fiber, which involves taking trips to farms raising cattle, pigs, poultry, sheep, and deer. 

This training is essential for those with ambitions to practice in Minnesota’s rural communities, where veterinary care shortages are common. 

Graduate students also visit production farms and facilities as part of their research, which often concentrates on the identification, treatment, and prevention of infectious diseases that cost U.S. producers billions of dollars each year. 

“They often go to farms to help solve problems,” Torremorell says. “To understand how diseases get transmitted or to come up with protocols to eliminate diseases, you really have to go to farms to understand the systems and work with producers and their veterinarians.”

Impactful research

Faculty- and staff-led research is also advancing thanks to collaboration with farms. Much of this research uses data contributed by producers to help better understand and prevent the spread of infectious diseases within Minnesota and across the country. 

For example, the college’s Morrison Swine Health Monitoring Project collects data submitted voluntarily by producers, with more than 35 companies across 28 states currently participating. In Minnesota, that includes 363,000 sows across 128 sow farms and 2.5 million pigs across 773 growing pig sites. Among the project’s data stores are nearly 40,000 sequences of RNA from just the porcine respiratory and reproductive syndrome virus alone. Researchers are using this data to help farmers better understand how the rapidly evolving virus moves within and between herds—and the best course of action for getting pigs healthy again.

“Producers are also giving back, and we're learning from them,” Torremorell says. “We can analyze the data, and that in turn allows us to help more animals, more producers, and more veterinarians.”

Others focus on treating common medical conditions—such as mastitis or lameness in dairy cattle—improving animal nutrition, and using data to develop best practices for calf care on organic dairy farms.

The college also serves Minnesota producers through its Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, which offers robust disease testing as well as pathology and necropsy services, all of which give insight into potential biosecurity threats on farms. The laboratory and its researchers have been on the frontlines of numerous disease outbreaks, including the ongoing highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreak, and have been instrumental in the development of vaccines. 

A two-way street

The collaboration between agriculture and academia is one that Torremorell says gives the state of Minnesota an advantage in terms of disease control and other production elements. 

“I think it's that ongoing back and forth that really helps with being progressive,” she said. “It helps to stay attuned to the latest information—the latest discoveries.”

Whether visiting farms or holding outreach events, the College of Veterinary Medicine is working hand-in-hand with producers and veterinarians to safeguard the health of commodity animals and the biosecurity of production farms, which is critical to Minnesota’s economy. 

The state ranks No. 6 in the nation for agricultural production—and No. 1 in turkey production and No. 2 in swine production—with $26 billion in annual agricultural sales, according to the state Department of Agriculture. Overall, agricultural production, processing, and forestry industries generate more than $100 billion annually in total economic impacts and support more than 388,000 jobs.

Infectious diseases remain a major threat, but partnerships between the academic and agricultural communities in cooperation with government agencies—such as the USDA, Minnesota Board of Animal Health and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources—can help protect animal health and curtail economic impacts. It’s a lot for any one group to take on, but combining industry data with University resources creates a greater capacity for discovery. 

“I think it's very important that producers and veterinarians in Minnesota understand that their collaboration is crucial,” Torremorell says. “They help support what we do and ensure what we do is relevant to what they need.”