neatnetworkeu's blog

Research presented at the recent British Academy of Management Conference (Belfast) on veterinary business education highlighted the need for continued innovative approaches. While the study revealed variety in the scope and content of veterinary business modules, it also showed commonality in pedagogical approaches adopted and assessment methods employed. The quantity of core business modules provided to students varied from 0 hours to a total of 44 hours across the entire veterinary programme.

I'd like to flag two studies in particular, with their focus on the economics of alternative approaches to beef production in southern Africa that could positively transform livelihoods for farmers and pastoralists, while helping to secure a future for wildlife and wildlife-based tourism opportunities. As most AHEAD Update readers know, market access for livestock and livestock products from Africa is constrained by the presence of foot and mouth disease (FMD).

NEAT partners conducted an online questionnaire survey to assess current and future needs and expectations of people using EAH. The survey that covered 35 countries among which 26 were European revealed that education in EAH is inconsistently offered by the different educational institutions surveyed and does not only depend upon the country considered. There is no harmonization between the different curricula and limited exchanges to run or promote them.

‘Antimicrobial resistance is a major one health problem. More so as modern medicine is dependent on efficient therapies being available e.g., when doing major surgery or treating cancer.  In veterinary medicine, antimicrobials are one of the main tools in the veterinary toolbox for ensuring animal health and welfare. With resistance emerging for ever more antimicrobials and the lack of new antimicrobials since the 1980s (Davis, 2013) this veterinary toolbox is becoming empty.

It has become customary to speak of the economics of animal health as learning about ‘tools’. That is misleading. A ‘tool’ means an instrument, implement or, more generally, something that serves as a means to accomplish an end. But before selecting a tool the first task is to define what that end, or objective, is. In economics, it is to improve society’s well-being by using scarce resources as efficiently as possible.