Thank you.
It is a great question, because it is definitely an infrastructure challenge in our sector specifically, and it's more widespread. It's not necessarily a case of being geographically distinguished or separate.
We have in our industry a very limited access to competent, experienced, and willing small ruminant veterinarians across the country, and it does make it a challenge to ensure that we're having validations for different insurance programs.
When we see regulations change to further limit access to antimicrobials and veterinary drugs and to require veterinarian-client-patient relationships, or VCPRs, whereby drugs have to be administered only under one of those and you have to have an attending veterinarian come on farm and validate the issue and the correct treatment, that becomes an increasing problem.
When we've been part of the discussions on regulations with respect to vet drugs and how they change, we need to keep in mind that it is a challenge to access competent veterinarians who are willing to make the farm visits and to do so economically for producers. When a vet fee is $100 and the animal is worth $100, we don't want to leave producers where they have to make a choice between animal welfare and bottom line.
I don't know how this next agricultural policy framework manages that infrastructure challenge, but I do like the ideas that Hans brought up, which were video conferencing and remote access to veterinarians. I think we're going to need to see some flexibility within the veterinary practices to understand those limitations to access and to provide some creative ways to create these relationships that allow producers to have access to treatment and medications in a responsible manner that respects the proper and sustainable use of veterinary drugs.