Giving Compass' Take:

• Esther Honig shares the concerning picture of the rural veterinarian shortage - low wages and high student debt are leaving farmers without the expert care they need to protect their animals, their livelihoods, and the food supply.

• How can philanthropy support rural areas to access the services they need? What are the societal implications of the shortage of rural veterinarians?

• Learn how philanthropy can support rural life.

Large-animal veterinarians like Karen Chandler inspect livestock before they can legally be sold for slaughter. If an illness spreads among a herd or flock, it’s Chandler’s responsibility to diagnose them and report it to public health officials. And early-detection is key to preventing devastating outbreaks, like the 2015 bird flu in the Midwest that led to the deaths of 50 million turkeys and chickens.

But there’s been a shortage of large-animal vets in rural areas since 2003 due to a combination, experts say, of low wages, long hours and fewer new graduates wanting to live outside of a major city.

Without vets, farmers and the nation’s food supply are more vulnerable to those disease outbreaks. It also could mean sick and infected animals will increasingly go untested, said Mark Stetter, the dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine at Colorado State University.

“When we think about diseases that are foreign, that don’t exist within the United States, things like foot and mouth disease, or a list of other diseases that could really devastate our livestock industry … veterinarians perform that first line of defense,” he said.

In 2017, the U.S Department of Agriculture identified 187 mostly rural areas (including eight Colorado counties) that lack sufficient access to a veterinarian. Stetter said he often consults with School of Medicine at the University of Colorado, because the scarcity of rural vets looks nearly identical to the country’s shortage of rural doctors.

For one, rural wages haven’t kept up with rising student debt. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, veterinarians in rural areas earn between$61,470 and $73,540 a year — roughly half of what they could make in a city. And the vet-school loans are hefty: an average of $143,757, according to the American Association of Veterinary Medicine.

Read the full article about the shortage of rural veterinarians by Esther Honig at Harvest Public Media.