Bryant enjoys helping organisations through change and establishing the new normal and wants to help veterinary practices be as successful as they can, with high morale and good retention across the profession.
He wants to see great support for wellbeing in the profession and for vets to feel rewarded for the important work they do.
“Hopefully, the experience I bring from my career so far will help grow the capability of the people in NZVA and our members so they can achieve more than they think they can at present.”
Engagement between veterinarians and their clients, many being farmers, is a key initiative he is focused on.
“There are some farmers who don’t engage or engage at a very limited extent with their local veterinarian and we are strongly advocating that farmers have an enduring relationship with them.
“There’s three main reasons we are keen to see these relationships develop further, with animal health and welfare being number one, but also product stewardship and biosecurity are critical to the future of animal agriculture.”
The association believes having an annual planning session with a vet is important for optimising animal health and welfare.
It strongly believes the connection with high-quality animal care leads to increased production and reduced costs because happy, healthy animals perform better and are less likely to get sick.
“A veterinarian can help a farmer understand and achieve their requirements for animal care, which allows New Zealand to optimise animal welfare and to continue supplying high-quality products to increasingly discerning markets that care about the origin of the products they use and consume.
“There’s an overlap to biosecurity related issues here too.”
He recognises there are some good examples across the sector encouraging proactive engagement, such as the Co-operative Difference with Fonterra, Lead with Pride with Synlait and Te Ara Miraka with Miraka. The association strongly supports such initiatives.
And when farmers are proactive in preventing problems there is a reduced need for antibiotics and other drugs, which flows onto the second element, product stewardship.
One of the biggest threats to animal and human health is anti-microbial resistance. The World Health Organisation ranks resistance in its top 10 threats to global health and farmers can help by reducing anti-microbial use in livestock, specifically antibiotics and drenches.
“We aren’t suggesting they shouldn’t use them when required as these products are an essential part of an animal health and welfare management plan.
“But if we don’t show the world that we are using antimicrobials responsibly there is the risk of access to meds, which could affect pricing premiums.
“And in turn it may force an increase in regulation on some of these products, which is the last thing farmers want and the last thing veterinarians want.”
An example is dry cow therapy. Most cows do not need antibiotics because they do not have mastitis at dry off. Farmers can work with their vet to formulate a plan to select which cows will get dry cow therapy and which will receive an internal teat sealant.
“We call this prudent use of antibiotics. It’s an area vets can really help farmers.”
The third focus area is biosecurity, which the other priorities closely relate to.
“One example we are looking at is how the resistance to drench products is developing faster than new products are being created,” he says.
“Some farms in NZ are running out of effective products to use.”
Vets want to help farmers understand biosecurity risks and the decisions they make about buying stock.
“Animal movements between farms spread resistance and we encourage farmers to ask some key questions about biosecurity before bringing new stock on-farm.
“We want to work with farmers in a proactive, pre-emptive manner rather than wait for a disaster to happen.”
Vets want less of a transactional relationship with farmers and more of a support relationship.
The association is a membership organisation that supports its members.
Vets are responsible for looking after animals and animal health and wellbeing. The association’s job is to support them to be as successful as they can in that space.
“We operate at a number of levels. We advocate on behalf of our members and sometimes that’s going to be on animal health issues back to government agencies.
“We facilitate education within the profession around good practice and set standards to assist them and support our members for their professional development.”
Members have told the association to focus on supporting employers and business owners as well as vets. They also want it to advocate and help people understand animal welfare issues from a science perspective and look after issues that drive it.
There are some big challenges around wellbeing among members, along with workforce related challenges like recruitment and retention. Vets want the association to support all those components.
Bryant grew up in Wellington and graduated from Victoria University with a marketing degree. He met his wife Joss in a student pub in Wellington and they have a son, two daughters and three grandchildren.
After graduating he went to work in the automotive industry but a role with the Dairy Board lured him into the agricultural sector. He spent 15 years with the Dairy Board and for part of it he worked internationally where he marketed consumer dairy products.
“I found myself believing my own rhetoric, when appointing and training distributors, around how fantastic our farmers are and what an awesome job they do with pasture-based farming.
“When I came back to NZ I decided I wanted to ensure I worked in or near the dairy industry because I believed so passionately about it and I could see what it does for our economy.”
He headed straight across to Agriculture ITO where he spent a decade with the organisation and was the founding chief executive of the Primary ITO, which merged training organisations from several diverse primary industry sectors to create NZ’s largest industry training organisation.
It is also where he got first-hand experience of dairy farming after some of his colleagues, who were farmers, challenged him to milk cows.
“They didn’t think the city boy would step up or be able to hack it so I took up the challenge. Some days I went to work in my overalls between milkings. I called it bringing the country to town.”
It was only for a week on a 250-cow farm near Wellington but he thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
“It certainly helped me put in perspective what a day in the life of a dairy farmer is like. It also helped me overcome a fear I had of large animals.”
He then did a stint on his own consulting but says “It was interesting work but I missed contributing and it was pretty lonely with only the dog or cat to talk to in my home office.”
He then went to work at Corrections, leading a programme that brought together industry organisations and companies to create work opportunities in prisons to help prisoners develop vocational skills and connect them with job opportunities on their release.
He is driven by being able to contribute and make a difference. He likes to help others so when the role with association came up he saw it as a great opportunity.
The association has also been through a period of significant constitutional change aimed at increasing connectivity with members.
“I’m enjoying helping the organisation refocus. We want to get it humming in the areas members have said are important.”
All while maintaining his own healthy work-life balance with his grandkids, kids, travel, mountain biking and rugby.
Away from the office he is a keen mountain biker and tries to get out as often as he can on the great trails around Wellington. Occasionally he and some friends will trek to other parts of the country for a ride.
The family are avid travellers and he and Joss are working through a bucket list of countries and have explored Europe as well as parts of America and Canada.
As a born and bred Wellingtonian he is a loyal Hurricanes fan and watches all local games live and swears he will support them through thick and thin. He also follows the All Blacks and says if Ireland and Wales host a Rugby World Cup he and Joss will be there with bells on.
