Across the country, veterinarians who care for the animals that provide the United States with food are in increasingly short supply.  Since 1990, the number of veterinarians focusing on large animals has dropped to fewer than 4,500 from nearly 6,000, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association, which said those doctors now made up less than 10 percent of private-practice veterinarians. A recent study predicted that by 2016, 4 out of every 100 food-animal veterinary jobs would go unfilled.

For one, there is generally more money to be made caring for cats and dogs. And with fewer students from farm backgrounds, fewer gravitate to rural jobs, especially if a spouse needs work, too. Large-animal care can be tough, even dangerous — think of maneuvering in frigid weather around 1,000-pound cows in manure-filled pens. And more veterinarians are women, generally less inclined toward large animals.

“We look at it as a crisis,” said Dr. Roger Mahr, the association’s president, who cited serious consequences not only for the well-being of farmers and animals, but also potentially for food safety and the impact of non-native diseases like bird flu.

“Of all the emerging diseases in people in the last 25 years, 75 percent of those were transmitted from animals,” Dr. Mahr said. “Veterinarians are the ones to identify those diseases in animals first.”

Pressed to address the problem, Congress enacted a law in 2004 offering to repay the student loans of veterinarians working in underserved areas, but it has received little financing.

Click here to read the full story published in the New York Times.