USING VETERINARIANS TO INCREASE PROFITS IN AQUACULTURE  

Nora Hickey*, Myron Kebus, Michael Collins
 
University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine
2015 Linden Dr.
Madison, WI 53706
nhickey2@wisc.edu

Many animal production industries, including the poultry, swine, beef, and dairy industries, use veterinarians to increase their profits. Veterinary services such as biosecurity plans, routine health assessments, and disease investigations help producers reduce losses and improve efficiencies. While some large aquaculture producers use veterinarians similar to other animal production industries, overall the role of veterinarians working in aquaculture is very different from the role of their colleagues in the poultry, swine, beef, and dairy industries.

The Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection (WDATCP) developed a Fish Health Medicine Certificate Program in 1999 that certifies veterinarians to become Qualified Fish Health Inspectors (QFHI) and perform inspections and issue health certificates for the interstate movement of fish. WDATCP maintains a database with information about all of the fish health certificates that have been issued since the beginning of the program. The information in this database as well as interviews with current QFHIs were used to explore the current role of veterinarians in aquaculture.

All of the veterinarians interviewed were interested in increasing the amount of aquaculture work they do. The distribution of these veterinarians in locations across the state of Wisconsin combined with their completion of the Fish Health Medicine Certificate Program indicates that fish farmers in Wisconsin have easy access to interested and qualified aquaculture veterinarians. Veterinarians can provide farmers with not only regulatory services, such as performing inspections for fish health certificates, but also non-regulatory production services, which help farmers improve the health of their fish. However, most of these veterinarians reported that fish farmer clients requested their services solely for regulatory work; the two veterinarians that did receive requests to provide their clients with production services said they still spent well over 75% of their time doing regulatory work. Comparing the 75% of time veterinarians in aquaculture spend doing regulatory work with the 5% of time veterinarians in the poultry industry spend doing regulatory work, it becomes apparent that fish farmers are not utilizing the production services veterinarians provide to farmers in other animal production industries.

Missing out on these production services may mean that fish farmers are also missing out on the increased profits that these production services bring to the poultry, swine, beef, and dairy industries.