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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Vet. Sci.
Sec. Veterinary Humanities and Social Sciences
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fvets.2025.1521440
This article is part of the Research Topic Climate-Smart Livestock Production: Strategies for Enhanced Sustainability and Resilience View all 5 articles
Education necessity for veterinary-producer relationship creation and sustainability: a mixed method study
Provisionally accepted- 1 Texas A and M University, College Station, United States
- 2 Texas A&M AgriLife Research, Temple, New Hampshire, United States
Objectives: To identify barriers to veterinarian-producer partnerships and suggest collaborative applied education as a means to enhance economic efficiency and sustainability of small and medium livestock operations and rural veterinary practices. Materials and methods: A participatory needs assessment, exploring the willingness and barriers to producer-veterinarian partnerships to enhance small/medium livestock operations, was distributed to Texas producers and veterinarians. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected via online, closed-ended survey questions and free response interviews. Responses were analyzed using SPSS and HyperRESEARCH to identify relevant terms, ideas, patterns, or themes. Results: Similar responses from 115 veterinarians and 58 producers revealed five major themes regarding relationship barriers: time, financial challenges, communication, competing perspectives, and respect. Overall producers reported greater willingness to partner in all areas, health care (90%), to achieve goals (80%), and to expand business (70%), than veterinarians. Veterinarian interviews revealed a need for increased animal health education among producers, while more than 60% of producers expressed high interest in continuing education on animal health topics. Discussion: Veterinarians and producers experience similar barriers to establishing partnerships. Both groups also recognize a need for education and prefer in-person collaborative learning communities Such educational opportunities can encourage formal veterinary-producer partnerships and provide solutions that enhance the economic efficiency and sustainability of small/medium livestock operations.
Keywords: veterinarian-producer relationship, veterinary-producer perspectives, veterinary care barriers, Education programs, partnership willingness, operation sustainability
Received: 01 Nov 2024; Accepted: 03 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Ritter, Gonzales and Mays. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Nicola L Ritter, Texas A and M University, College Station, United States
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