Students from Harper & Keele Vet School, University of Nottingham and Bridgwater & Taunton College came out on top in the 2025 RABDF Farm Health Management Awards, kindly sponsored by Volac.
The award aims to demonstrate an understanding of, and test students’ knowledge of, proactive farm health management.
The competition is split into three categories: students at agricultural colleges, agricultural universities and vet schools.
Oriana Barnes from the Harper & Keele Vet School, Elektra Brown from University of Nottingham and Amy Bishop from Bridgwater & Taunton College were announced as the winners of the 2025 Farm Health Management Awards.
The runners-up were Catherine Kelly from the University of Surrey, and Beth Wallace from Duchy College.
Each candidate submitted a 1,500 word essay on proactive farm health management explaining how they thought farm sustainability could be enhanced, from both financial and environmental aspects.
The awards were judged by Sarah Banks, and RABDF Trustees Sarah Tomlinson, and Tim Brigstocke. Each category winner took home a £500 cash prize.
Sarah Tomlinson says, again, it was a huge privilege, as a RABDF Trustee, to judge the Farm Health Planning essays.
“All of the entries were clearly passionate about the importance of promoting proactive health policies on farm.”
“The winners stood out with exceptional knowledge of the industry as a whole, noting not only industry professionals, tools and other expertise on and off farm, but also considering the consumer and public perception of farm animal health and welfare. Essays were well substantiated with data from numerous sources, and also supported with the authors own on-farm experiences which really helped bring them to life. It was clear to see they understood the importance of monitoring data and the impact endemic disease can have on costs and long term financial and environmental sustainability of a business.”
The award winners were announced on the Dairy Hub at Dairy-Tech and were presented by Sarah Banks, and Sarah Tomlinson.