Food Supply Veterinary Medicine - Data sources and terminology

Data Sources:

• American Veterinary Medical Association
  • Used information from the AVMA database to acquire the number of Food Animal Veterinarians as of December 31, 2008.

    The AVMA relies on updated, accurate member records when creating these maps. If you would like to review or update your member record, please click here.

• United States Department of Agriculture – National Agriculture Statistics Service
  • Based off of the 2007 Census of Agriculture Volume 1 – County Level Data

Terminology/Key:

• Total Food Animal Veterinarians
  • The total food animal veterinarians reported consist of all active AVMA members (Regular, Recent Graduates, and Educational) and Non-members (Excludes non-members born prior to 1938 and non-members who received their veterinary degree prior to 1964) and who have a species category of food animal exclusive, predominant or mixed*.
    • *Mixed Animal counted in the food animal veterinarian category consisted of all those who had 30% or more involvement with one or more of the following species: Bovine, Porcine, Ovine/Camelid, Cervid, Poultry
• Total Food Animals
  • Three categories from the USDA census were used for each state and combined to make up the total food animals reported. The categories are: Cattle and Calves, Hogs & Pigs and Sheep & Lambs
• The column within the table listed as "Counties with 0 Veterinarians" has three labels
  • x: Counties with 0 Veterinarians where there are less than 5,000 food animals
  • y: Counties with 0 Veterinarians where there are between 5,000 and 25,000 food animals
  • z: Counties with 0 Veterinarians where there are more than 25,000 food animals