Training - Teaching an old dog new tricks?
Previous articles have concentrated on specific disease problems and how to tackle them but a meeting in September has prompted us to change tack for this month. September saw the launch of a new training programme in East Anglia for small or medium size enterprises following a successful bid by a number of organisations and companies to gain funding from the European Social Fund. This funding will allow subsidised and structured vocational training for poultry workers and managers.
This is very timely, as you will be only too well aware, we are constantly bombarded with a range of standards, schemes, codes etc dictating how we should manage and look after our birds. Most are aimed at improving retailer/consumer confidence in our final product and how it was produced. Buzzwords abound including traceability, audit, assessment, assurance, stockmanship and competence. It is this last word which usually gets most farmers backs up. Many producers have been working successfully with stock for many years and resent the need to be told to "go back to school" just to satisfy a supermarket buyer! However, we would reasonably expect our GP, a bus driver or even your vet to be competent and to be able to convince us of that competence. There is, therefore, a need to demonstrate competence in the areas of poultry health and welfare to ensure compliance with the various codes and standards, as well as boosting customer confidence that such codes and standards are working in practice.
The big dilemma is how to convince such consumers of our ability to deliver. There are a large number of training days, meetings, conferences and courses advertised in Poultry World and other trade journals. These offer the ability to extend your experience of what is new and emerging, new ideas on old techniques and an opportunity to exchange experiences with other producers. If you come back from a meeting with just one new idea or thought, it has been time and money well spent.
One possibility, which is worth thinking about, is the National Vocational Qualification (NVQ). This part Government funded scheme offers the possibility of a range of courses in poultry health and welfare covered by a structure of training programmes and assessment. The beauty of the NVQ system is that it can be workplace based, and for many experienced stockmen the assessment covers demonstration of your current level of competence, i.e. how good you are at what you do. Thus if you are already able to demonstrate your skills, the assessor can award an NVQ without the need to require a prolonged programme of lectures and courses. The assessor will confirm your abilities and/or point out "holes" that require plugging.
We all have something to learn and should be realistic enough to accept this. However much we dislike it, the current atmosphere of the suspicious consumer means that we must build confidence in our product and how we produce it. Part of this process is going to be the necessity to demonstrate that we are doing what we say we are doing in maintaining the health and welfare of our birds to an acceptable standard.
