Dr Ruth Clements BVM&S MRCVS

I am a veterinary surgeon with a passion for sustainable livestock production, and have dedicated my career to date to researching, developing and communicating how we might develop better systems for our animals whilst rising to the challenge of feeding our growing population. My personal motivation as a vet is the number of animals I might be able to touch with my work, even small improvements to a system of a reduced prevalence of disease may have the potential to have a positive impact on many animals both now and in the future which seems a worthwhile legacy. At the moment I head up Veterinary Programmes for the Benchmark group which involves working on solutions to some of the challenges we face in our livestock and aquaculture production systems – in particular my focus is bringing together the various parts of our business to come up with balanced animal health solutions which draw from our expertise in genetics, nutrition, and vaccine development to help producers better protect their animals against some of our endemic diseases. As well as our programmes to tackle lameness in sheep we are currently focusing on Parasitic Gastroenteritis in sheep, sea lice in farmed salmon and some emerging diseases in tilapia production.