posted on Friday, April 19, 2013 in News
Spring 2013 BIVI Swine Academy training participants, pictured with Dr. Josh Ellingson.
AMVC takes great pride in helping educate not only those in the United States but across the globe about swine production practices. April 17th was no exception as we hosted fifteen individuals from eight different countries, including: Canada, China, Mexico, Poland, Spain, South Korea, Ukraine, and Romania.
AMVC SMEC, Swine Medicine Education Center, hosted a part of a two week long Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica Inc., BIVI, Swine Academy training event for BIVI employees and customers. SMEC will be organizing a total of three of these events in 2013, during the spring, summer, and fall. During their two weeks in the United States, the group spends most of their time in a classroom setting in Ames, Iowa, where they participate in lectures on various pig related topics, with an emphasis on swine deseases and how to resolve and eliminate them. AMVC comes into play as a one day training opportunity, hosted by Dr. Josh Ellingson and Dr. Jason Hocker.
During their eventful day with AMVC they toured a commercial breeding farm, were given an AMVC business overview, and visited our Audubon veterinary clinic. The indivudiuals toured one of AMVC's managed farms to see a large, commercial, established, United States breeding farm and how we operate on a daily basis. While on the farm they were astonsihed at how efficient our swine production practices are. Many other countries have at least one full time worker per 40-80 sows, so they were very impressed with our management system. The business overview gave our foreign friends a look inside how AMVC operates, our many different entities, as well as our different divisions. At the veterinary clinic they toured the facility looking at different products, treatments and processing areas, and met the staff.
In general, the training participants were very impressed with the amount of technological tools we utilize each and every day, our access to top of the line diagnostic laboratories, and the overall professionalism of the AMVC farms, employees and staff. All fifteen individuals were very engaging, not afraid to ask questions, open to sharing ideas, and welcomed the opportunity challenge each other to learn more. This is just one of many programs in which AMVC SMEC have brought in international veterinarians and pig production specialists. Since the fall of 2011, we have had 113 international visitors coming from 26 different countries (see map below). AMVC is very grateful for the opportunity to educate others and to share our knowledge to help improve swine production and the availability of safe and nutritious food around the world.
