Guest Blog

The service a food animal veterinarian provides has dramatically changed over the past 50 years. In the past, food animal veterinarians awaited farm calls concerning the health of individual animals, which helped individual farms.

As of this writing, I have completed my first full year in Iraq. My supervisors in Washington D.C. and here at the U.S. Embassy have added an additional four months on to my deployment. We have several developmental projects underway, and because they were built during my watch, I am to see them through.

The early 18th century saw a social upheaval in England. Historians estimate that half of the population depended in part upon charity to survive. A class war was very much in place. Early in that century, Parliament legislated capital punishment for servants who stole. At the same time, some rich were themselves into theft.

The work of agricultural development requires coordination with many levels of government and non-government organizations.

I recently traveled to a Forward Operating Base in eastern Iraq, very near the Iranian border. There, my colleague, Dr. Jessie McCoy, DVM, and I completed several missions in the vast expanse of the desert.

Winter is a good time for reflection – even in sunny California where I produce milk. The days and nights are cooler, easier on the cows and the people. With 2010 just around the corner, a certain kind of thoughtful silence settles in.