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While the economy is going down the hole and the University of Maine System gets less and less money from the government each year, facilities such as the J.F. Witter Teaching and Research Center’s veterinary training programs are disappearing.
The University of Maine slaughtered the beef cattle and sheep flock programs and reduced the equine and dairy cattle education sectors. All the while, Maine is in a crunch to find large-animal veterinarians.
If the state of Maine has a need, such as large-animal vets, it would make sense for it to help UMaine by subsidizing the program and giving grants to Witter. This would help farmers who struggle to get cattle and horses emergency health care and would therefore keep farms healthy. Healthy farms mean more food. When farms and veterinary research centers benefit, all Maine citizens benefit.
Witter farm offers educational opportunities to students, including learning how to vaccinate horses and cows, how to cut and bail hay, how to manage a farm and how to re-train horses. These are not skills a student can effectively learn from a textbook. While books can explain how a healthy horse’s nostrils are supposed to look, it takes spending time with the animals to understand.
Programs such as the ones offered at Witter are necessary to keep this state healthy in more ways than one, and Maine’s state government needs to recognize this and put money where our mouths are.
Bangor Daily News