GREY-BRUCE – Grey Bruce Farmers’ Week has been a mainstay for the agricultural industry in Grey and Bruce counties since 1966.
The featured commodities have evolved as the area’s agricultural focus has changed, but the mandate to provide information to producers and agribusiness has remained firm. Producers have supported programming for 57 years, so the committee decided to give back to the community.
With that mandate in mind, the Grey Bruce Farmers’ Week Committee established an annual $1,000 Grey Bruce Farmers’ Week prize in conjunction with the University of Guelph, Ontario Veterinary College (OVC), to recognize new veterinarians entering food animal practices serving producers in Grey and Bruce counties.
This award recognizes the individual’s past accomplishments, but also encourages their future contributions, and commitment to our rural communities.
On June 16, the OVC Doctor of Veterinary Medicine Class of 2023 had their convocation and veterinary oath ceremony.
The GBFW committee is delighted to announce that Dr. Hannah Jansen is the recipient of the 2023 GBFW award.
Jansen grew up on a swine and cash crop farm outside of Seaforth. Other animals on the farm included horses, goats, backyard chickens, veal, a few beef cattle, and sheep. She loved growing up on a farm and getting to spend time caring for these animals.
Jansen did her undergraduate degree in nursing science and graduated to work as a registered nurse for three years, first in Tennessee, then in Ontario. She loved medicine and the people but missed working with the animals and the agriculture community. She decided to bridge the gap between her interests and set her sights on veterinary school. After taking some required courses, working at the University of Guelph as a research technician and taking some odd jobs as a farm hand, she was elated to be accepted into the veterinary program.
As an aspiring vet, she never considered working with anything other than livestock in the agriculture community. She believed that she would work full-time as a swine vet. Jansen was swayed to broaden her scope in large animal medicine while shadowing throughout second and third year at Blyth Vets. She enjoyed the herd and individual medicine that they provided to the other large animal species including cattle, small ruminants, and horses.
Jansen is currently working four days a week at South West Ontario Veterinary Services, pursing her dreams of working as a swine veterinarian working across Ontario, including farms in both Grey and Bruce counties. She is also working one day a week and sharing the on-call schedule at Blyth Veterinary Services, working predominantly in Huron and Bruce counties as a large animal veterinarian.
At both practices, she has enjoyed meeting the farmers and getting to know the various operations. As she starts her career, it is her hope to be part of the farm teams helping the farmers to be economically successful and strive to provide the animals with the most humane care.
She has a special interest in applying a one health approach to the veterinary care she provides due to her history working in the human health care field and her experiences on their farm. This approach uses a holistic approach to medicine by incorporating a human, animal, and environmental health perspective.
Jansen would like to thank the farmers who have already welcomed her onto their farms and looks forward to meeting more.
