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Finding Your Place in Agriculture with Dr. Michelle Schack
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Although the connection between farms and consumers feels more distant than ever, the power of social media and transparency could be the best advocacy tool.
Dr. Michelle Schack, veterinarian, joins The Cultivating Leaders Podcast to explore how curiosity, compassion, and a willingness to learn can open unexpected doors in agriculture. From her start at UC Davis to her leadership role as co-founder of DairyKind, Michelle shares how she’s using education, empathy, and social media to build bridges between farmers and consumers.
Michelle covers:
- The possibilities in a career: the future of the industry relies on people of all backgrounds who are passionate about food production
- Bridging the Gap: understanding both sides of the food system is essential to the future of ag
- Empowering Animal Care: training and supporting farm employees drives animal well-being
This episode will challenge you to think differently about advocacy and what it really means to create a sustainable agriculture industry.
Want to hear more from Michelle? Check out her blog here!
Connect with Michelle
- Connect on LinkedIn
- Follow her on Instagram
- Follow her on TikTok
- Visit her website
Connect with AFA
- Follow us on LinkedIn
- Follow us on Instagram
- Like us on Facebook
- Follow us on TikTok
- Visit our Website
About The Cultivating Leaders Podcast
Real stories. Practical advice. Tangible growth. Join The Cultivating Leaders Podcast, brought to you by Agriculture Future of America, as we explore what it takes to lead in food, agriculture, and beyond. Whether you’re just starting out or leading at the highest level, this podcast is your go-to resource for leadership that matters. Listen now and start cultivating your leadership journey.
Don’t forget to follow/subscribe so you never miss another episode!
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Cultivating Leaders' and Guest
00:00:02
Speaker
it's It's really about who you know. And I think I just learned to be open to every opportunity that came my way because every time I tried something new, I was hugely surprised.
00:00:15
Speaker
Welcome to the Cultivating Leaders podcast, where we get inside the minds of leaders to harvest great ideas and lessons that help you grow as a difference maker in food and agriculture. I'm your host and curiosity captain, Nicole Ersig.
00:00:28
Speaker
Today's guest is a social media superstar, resourceful entrepreneur, and animal welfare advocate. Michelle Schack is a dedicated cattle veterinarian and co-founder of Dairy Kind, which helps farms train employees and strengthen animal care.
00:00:42
Speaker
Then she took to the internet to connect with consumers and break down myths about the dairy industry. Michelle, welcome to the pod. Thank you for having me. So what did I miss from your bio? I think you got it all.
00:00:52
Speaker
Here
Michelle's Journey into Agriculture
00:00:53
Speaker
I am. i i guess the only thing I might add is that I didn't actually come from an agriculture background. And that's usually interesting to people like your listeners because It took a little bit to get my foot in the door, but i had a lot of welcoming people that brought me in and i was able to make a name for myself here. And I love it.
00:01:13
Speaker
Love working in agriculture. Love that. So how did you get involved in the dairy industry? Like how did you get from someone who doesn't maybe have exposure to agriculture to now working in it and advocating for it?
00:01:24
Speaker
I started in college. I took my college animal science classes because I knew I wanted to be a veterinarian. And in animal science, they put us in working with all the different types of animals in agriculture because that's what my college had. I went to UC Davis. So we had a swine facility. We had a dairy barn. We had a goat barn, a sheep barn, a beef facility. I mean, we had all of it.
00:01:47
Speaker
And I got to work with a lot of different kinds of animals and I loved it. And Then I branched out and thought, well, what else is there? I worked with some horses. I worked with sea lions. I worked at a zoo. I worked with dogs and cats and did internships in a lot of different sectors and just kept coming back to agriculture. I just loved the people.
00:02:07
Speaker
I can absolutely agree with that. The people in agriculture are just something very special. So I think you have ah a story that a lot of veets students have, right? Like you think you're going to become a veterinarian and then all of a sudden you have to work with cows and and that kind of thing.
00:02:22
Speaker
When did you know that, hey, no, this is where I want to be?
Choosing Dairy Production
00:02:25
Speaker
When I was an undergrad, that was when I decided i wanted to do production animal agriculture, but I wasn't sure at that point which kind. i was the herd manager for the swine facility UC Davis, which meant i actually lived at the pig barn, which was really cool.
00:02:41
Speaker
And I loved that experience and I really liked working with pigs. So I thought maybe that's what I want to do. I was interning at the dairy barn. So I loved working at the dairy on campus.
00:02:53
Speaker
I thought maybe that's what I want to do And then I was also working in a research lab with Dr. Frank Mitlerner working on cattle emissions. So, and that was mostly at the beef facility and at the feedlot.
00:03:06
Speaker
And so I thought maybe that's what I want to do. So I knew I wanted to do something in production animal agriculture by the time I graduated college and applied to vet school. But I wasn't sure exactly what until my last year of vet school when I was doing my externships, which is really that hands-on ride along shadowing the veterinarians one-on-one.
00:03:26
Speaker
And I did a lot of different kinds of things throughout that school within production animal agriculture. But dairy really was the standout to me my final year. And that's when I knew that I wanted to be a dairy cattle veterinarian.
00:03:40
Speaker
What is it that you think makes dairy special? Or like, what how did you find your connection to the dairy industry?
Passion for Dairy and Veterinary Work
00:03:46
Speaker
For me, it had a lot to do with the level of involvement I get to have as a veterinarian.
00:03:53
Speaker
I will say I just love dairy cows. They're very gentle. They're very curious. They're a lot of fun. They have a lot of personality and you really get to know them because they're around people all the time, which is a little bit different than some other sectors of agriculture.
00:04:10
Speaker
And so that was a lot of fun for me. But then on top of that, as a dairy cattle veterinarian, you're at the dairy on your client's farms, maybe once a week, every other week, at the minimum once a month.
00:04:24
Speaker
And so you really get to know the animals and the people on the farm and really have a big difference. I like the level of record keeping that dairy farms do. The records are great. And for me, data analysis is something that I'm really interested in, and it's a lot of fun for me.
00:04:40
Speaker
So being able to have that data that I could do some data analysis. Not all sectors of agriculture have that level of data. Some do, but not all of them do. So that was something I liked. And then being able to have that regular relationship with the people and the animals and follow up to if I made a recommendation, i didn't have to wait a year and then i maybe I see them next year.
00:05:01
Speaker
It was, hey, I'll see you in two weeks and let's talk about how that's going. And that was ah a big driver for me to go into dairy because I really feel like a strong member of the team as a veterinarian and and I enjoyed that.
00:05:14
Speaker
Love that. Totally makes sense.
Social Media and Dairy Advocacy
00:05:16
Speaker
So tell me, how did you get into the space of what I'm going to call advocacy or agvocacy, but you can correct me on that, of being a trusted voice online promoting the dairy industry?
00:05:27
Speaker
In 2020, I started Dairy Kind with my partners, which is a dairy education company, and we were trying to improve training on farms and access to training for the employees on dairy farms.
00:05:41
Speaker
And i I loved that. It was a lot of fun starting that, and it was a lot of fun seeing it grow. And I was just so proud of the people that I was working with and what we had created and and the movement that was taking place to just improve animal well-being on farms and the training of the employees on farms.
00:05:59
Speaker
And so i decided i was going to start posting about it. I recruited ah Gen Z ah intern to help me set up my TikTok because I wasn't exactly sure how TikTok worked, but I thought that was the place I wanted to start.
00:06:14
Speaker
And my first video was just about how cows are milked. The regular process, we showed cows walking in the parlor. We showed the steps of the milking problem process and then cows walking out of the parlor.
00:06:27
Speaker
And it was that simple. And that first video when ah where I had zero followers, I got 73,000 views on that video. And that's when I figured out, wow, I think people really want to learn about this.
00:06:39
Speaker
They're interested in what I have to say and they're interested in seeing what goes on on farms. And that's a lot of fun for me. So I was able to grow that into now multiple platforms and ah about a half a million followers across all my platforms.
00:06:55
Speaker
And it's been a lot of fun to see that grow. That's amazing. Yeah. What advice do you have for someone who doesn't come from an agriculture background, but is trying to make their way or break into the agriculture space?
00:07:10
Speaker
The first thing I want to say is we need more people like that. We need people to help support agriculture. Because it is dwindling and we need to bring in more people from the outside.
00:07:23
Speaker
But also, it's not just a numbers thing. As someone outside of agriculture, you bring a unique and different perspective. And that is really valuable.
00:07:34
Speaker
In agriculture, it's a small world and it feels like everyone knows everyone and everyone's very connected and it feels like this exclusive club. But because of that, it also can turn into an echo chamber sometimes where we're just repeating the same things.
00:07:50
Speaker
And bringing in that outside perspective sometimes is exactly what we need to open our eyes and see things a little differently. So to people that are interested in getting involved, I would say do it.
00:08:03
Speaker
Try different things and figure out what matches with your passion and what matches with your interests. One of the things that I have always been really interested in is this, as you're calling it, advocacy.
00:08:19
Speaker
But for me, it's really just education and getting the information out there. I'm just trying to show what is actually happening on farms and Because I remember being a kid and not knowing any of this.
00:08:32
Speaker
And this was before social media and and before the internet. And so I didn't have like a quick way to look it up. But now kids these days and people, even grownups that are interested in learning something, they're getting little snippets of information all the time throughout their day through social media And so if I can be a person that's just sharing a little glimpse into my world or a little glimpse into what happens on a dairy farm and maybe answering some questions they have or or didn't know that they had, but that they do have, that is really meaningful to me. and
00:09:07
Speaker
And so that was my passion. That's something that I was really interested in because it connected back. But... for for others, I think you can think about what is interesting to you. Maybe it's finance.
00:09:18
Speaker
Well, we need financial people in agriculture too. Maybe it's laboratory and chemicals and research. Well, we need those people in agriculture too. i think sometimes also we get people outside of agriculture think, well, I couldn't be a farmer.
00:09:33
Speaker
But that's not the only way. Agriculture is huge and it touches all of our lives in more ways than we can count. And we need a lot of people, not just the farmers, but the support people as well.
00:09:46
Speaker
I mean, for example, your job. Look at you right here running a podcast. I mean, that's really important too. it It doesn't matter what your interest is. There's going to be some version of that within agriculture.
00:10:00
Speaker
And so i think that people just need to find their passion and figure out what they're good at. And then And then get into that in that space and find others that are doing that and explore because there's going to be something for everyone.
00:10:13
Speaker
I think this is such an important message, especially as we think about the workplace today.
Bridging Farmer and Consumer Gap
00:10:17
Speaker
And the amount of people that have an agriculture background that are coming into the workforce so are limited. And we need that different perspective.
00:10:25
Speaker
And also sometimes for those who have grown up in agriculture or even just been in agriculture a long time, we can also maybe, want to say, be part of the problem, right? Of like, oh, they don't get it Any thoughts around really building those bridges and overcoming some of that maybe curmudgeony mindset that you might come across of ah they don't understand what they're talking about or they don't have an ag background. It doesn't mean that they're not smart or they can't contribute, but like kind of bridging some of those gaps that we run into sometimes.
00:10:57
Speaker
I have a lot of thoughts about that. So that's a great question. and And I would agree that that that can be an issue and it's something that we need to consider. I do a lot of speaking as well. And one of the things that I talk about is that exact thing is building those bridges.
00:11:14
Speaker
Because within agriculture, we can all agree that a big problem is that people are disconnected with where their food comes from. We ah can all agree. i say that and everyone is listening to this podcast right now is nodding their heads.
00:11:30
Speaker
But what I would argue is that just as big of a problem is that people in agriculture are disconnected to where their food goes.
00:11:41
Speaker
Snaps. Amen. And yes, there are some people that are selling direct to consumer and perhaps understand their consumer well, but there's a large sector of agriculture that don't really understand the consumer.
00:11:57
Speaker
And they're putting it all on the consumer so figure out and understand what they're doing and to believe in them and trust in them. But we have to make an effort on our side as well to reach out to the consumer and to understand the consumer and listen to them because Sometimes they don't know what they're talking about, but sometimes they have actually really good points.
00:12:18
Speaker
And sometimes they don't know what they're talking about, but their point is good, but they're going about it wrong. You know, or there's like different things that can go wrong with this gap that is growing and growing and growing, but it's not all on them to understand agriculture. I mean, i think about myself and there are a lot of people and a lot of services that I pay for that I don't understand. We just had an electrician come to our house to do something. And I don't understand a thing that he did, but he got it done. And I was very happy about that.
00:12:53
Speaker
I don't need to understand that, but I need to understand that the electrician that came to our house is an expert in that. And, and he explained it enough to me so that I kind of got what he was doing and, and the mission was accomplished at the end of the day.
00:13:09
Speaker
but The consumer that's buying their food at the grocery store, they would like to believe, they want to believe in the farmers and the ranchers and in agriculture.
00:13:22
Speaker
They want to support good farms. But we have to let them know that the good farms are out there so that they can feel more confident in their decision making and their food choices. Yeah. I love that example and of of an electrician because, Michelle, I just had a contractor here. We're doing a bathroom renovation. And like, do I want to know all the things that Trevor is doing? No. But did he explain them to me or did he tell me why he couldn't do what he wanted me to do or what I wanted him to do?
00:13:49
Speaker
i mean, yeah, I don't I trust him to be an expert. I think this is the part to like. He made me feel good enough about the process that if it was more expensive or if I wasn't able to get what I wanted, i understood why and was willing to make the compromise.
00:14:01
Speaker
And I think that's the other pieces we think about our consumers as well. Like, are we communicating the value and and why it costs that much or doesn't? Like, there is a they're our customer at the end of the day. Right.
00:14:14
Speaker
Yeah. and And he didn't just close the door and say, stop asking me questions. I know what I'm doing. Okay. Right. I mean, it's important. It's important that we communicate out. and And that's, it's not for everyone. Not everyone can, but maybe representatives or it it it's important that somebody is helping reach the consumer. And yes, that's exactly it too. um One of the examples I like to give too is, let's say you opened an ice cream shop and you had your chocolate ice cream, your strawberry ice cream, and your vanilla ice cream, and those were all really popular. popular And then one day you decided, I'm gonna make sushi flavored ice cream. It's gonna be delicious.
00:14:55
Speaker
And you tried it and you were like, wow, this is amazing. And then you went to sell it and nobody bought it. You can't blame them or yell at them because they don't agree with you that it's delicious.
00:15:09
Speaker
The fact is they don't want to buy it. So you're going to have to change what you're doing. And we the consumer, at the end of the day, is a customer. And whether you agree with them or not in their food choices or why they're valuing certain things over others, they're driving the market.
00:15:29
Speaker
That's the end of the line right there. And they're driving the market. And so whatever you're producing, whether that's milk or beef or cherries whatever you're cherries or whatever you're producing that that consumer does play a role, whether you like it or not. And so if we don't try to reach them and get through to them to help them understand and help them make more informed food choices, then it's just going to end up more and more frustrating because they're not going to make the choices that
00:16:02
Speaker
that makes sense to you. Absolutely.
Improving Animal Welfare
00:16:05
Speaker
So Michelle, I want to talk about animal welfare because that's your expertise and I am connecting that to the consumer. So can you tell me about your work there and and how maybe you've helped either improve things on farm or improve things on farm that then get translated back to the consumer?
00:16:21
Speaker
Yeah, i and have been a veterinarian working with dairy cattle for 10 years now. And I think all the farmers that I work with do a great job caring for their animals.
00:16:33
Speaker
So I just want to say that to begin with, because the farmers really do care about their animals and they want their animals to be treated well. But dairies are growing larger and larger, as in many sectors of ag.
00:16:46
Speaker
The businesses are growing bigger and bigger. And so there's more and more employees. Employee turnover is ah big challenge. Labor, employee turnover, those are challenges, I think, in many parts of the world and in many industries, and agriculture is one of them.
00:17:05
Speaker
With that employee turnover, it's really hard to keep up with training. And i as a veterinarian, do a lot of training on animal welfare and and management practices and different procedures on farms. And I work with all the different teams who are professionals and experts in what they do as well.
00:17:25
Speaker
and and And that's a part of my job that I really love. I love working with the people on the farms. But we found that it's a struggle to keep up with the training for us as a veterinarian because we're not there every day.
00:17:37
Speaker
And so someone might get hired. And if you wait around till I come back, maybe that's two weeks till I come back, which isn't that long. But also, they shouldn't be working for two weeks without some education, right?
00:17:49
Speaker
And the education they are getting, the on-the-job education, isn't really formal. And I think it's important that you have that on the job training, but also some formal education as well. So through Dairy Kind, we're working to improve the knowledge and the understanding of the employees on the farms so that they can better care for their animals. They can do the best job that they can do.
00:18:12
Speaker
ah We try to work with the different auditing companies. A lot of people don't know that dairy farms go through a lot of different audits and evaluations. So we work with the different auditing companies to make sure that our our trainings are meeting their standards.
00:18:28
Speaker
I'm the chair of the AABP, the American Association of Bovine Practitioners Animal Welfare Committee. So we try to stay up on all the current trends and make sure that our trainings are up to date.
00:18:39
Speaker
But to me, the best way to improve animal welfare on farms is through the people, the people that are actually caring for them. Boots on the ground, day after day, rain or shine, those are the people that are going to highly influence animal welfare on the farm.
00:18:59
Speaker
And I also want to say that animal welfare, a lot of people think about that as don't abuse the cows. We should we should not be...
00:19:09
Speaker
I don't know, hitting cows or stabbing cows or dragging, you know, people can think of all these terrible things that we can do to cows. But when we talk about animal wellbeing, we're talking about, we should be treating the cows the best that we can every day.
00:19:25
Speaker
And so this is not- That's way beyond the bare minimum. Yes, yes, way beyond. So this is not just don't do this or don't do that. It's helping people understand- These are the things that you're doing in your daily job. And this is why you're doing it.
00:19:41
Speaker
And this is why it's important to keep animal well-being at the forefront of your mind, no matter what your job is, whether you're scraping the pens, whether you're milking the cows, whether you're. caring for newborn calves, whether your job is just to feed the cows or sweep up the milking parlor or whatever your job is, every job on the farm impacts animal well-being. And we want those people to really have pride in what they do and be able to do the best job they can.
00:20:09
Speaker
Yeah, I think this is so cool that you saw a need and filled it, Michelle. And I think, too, as we think about farms, oftentimes a lot of us have our own experience in like a family farm or a small hobby farm or that kind of thing.
00:20:23
Speaker
But today, as we scale. you have to think differently about the business and you have to think how do you scale some of these good behaviors and how do you influence people inside a farm operations team.
00:20:35
Speaker
And so a lot of these like lessons in leadership and good people management and influencing and giving people the right tools for the job, it's some of these basic core principles of good leadership just applied at scale to farms.
00:20:50
Speaker
Yeah, i I totally agree. And I think that's a big thing that's missing in agriculture is we have a lot of people that are really good with plants or really good with animals or really good with the products that they're producing, but they have little to no training on the people side.
00:21:08
Speaker
And that is becoming more and more and more important. And that's why I think what AFA does is so important and really great for people because we need those types of skills just as much as we need those hands-on skills.
00:21:23
Speaker
Yes. Like you wouldn't think about like business culture as something that would be a topic at a farm conference. But I think more and more like those are the areas of the business that we have the opportunity to improve. Like we're really good technical experts in a lot of areas and and people are hard too. Like that's not the easiest part of the job. You can't break that down into science always. So it's really cool to see you you have this technical background, but you saw the need for the people aspect of it to be a well Yeah, I just spoke at the Precision Dairy Conference where they were talking about AI and drones and all this really fancy technology. And i came in to talk about DairyKind and i I talked about how we we can put all of our efforts and and all of our money into these really amazing high-tech things, but
00:22:18
Speaker
If when it comes down to it, the people don't know how to use it or don't understand what it's for, then what's the point? You know, there's still people behind everything that we're producing in agriculture, whatever the product is that comes from your farm, there's real people behind it.
00:22:37
Speaker
And we can't forget about those people and just jump straight to all the fanciest new things. The fanciest new things are a lot of fun, but it really starts with the people. Absolutely.
00:22:48
Speaker
Absolutely. So Michelle, I want to talk about your career a little bit.
Leadership Lessons and Career Reflections
00:22:52
Speaker
um What is a leadership lesson along the way that you've had to learn the hard way? I've had to learn a lot of lessons throughout my career.
00:23:01
Speaker
But one thing that I've had to learn is how to stick up for myself. And so a lot of that comes from being a woman in agriculture.
00:23:15
Speaker
And I will say that I haven't gotten a lot of negativity being a woman in ag. People have been very supportive of me, but at times it's almost too supportive. Like people like, here, let me do this for you or here.
00:23:28
Speaker
And it's not that they think that I can't do it. It's they're trying to be nice, but I've had to learn to stick up for myself and say, no, I got this.
00:23:40
Speaker
step aside, i can do this, you know, or no, I don't need help. I can do this on my own. And that I think has been a really important lesson. And then on the flip side you have to learn how to stick up for yourself in other ways too. You have to learn how to stick up for yourself and say, yes, I do need help.
00:23:59
Speaker
And I've, I've had that lesson, given to me in a lot of really hard ways. And probably the hardest way was when I was pregnant.
00:24:10
Speaker
ah With my second kid, I worked all the way up until I delivered. And when I went into the doctor, they sent me to the hospital and induced me because I was really, really sick. And they said, you should have spoken up.
00:24:25
Speaker
And I was powering through that week. And that whole last week that I was working, I was just convincing myself that I was being dramatic and it's fine. um I still have three weeks till delivery.
00:24:38
Speaker
I'm going to be fine. I got to get through this week. I can do this. You know, come on, Michelle, just keep going. And and i should have stopped. Looking back, I should have stopped and put my hand up and said, I need to slow down.
00:24:53
Speaker
And need, I need help at this point, or I need to take a break. And, and I didn't. And when I went into the hospital, i was needing a lot of extra help. And my body was telling me that I shouldn't have done that. And that was a ah really hard lesson.
00:25:13
Speaker
So I think that being able to stick up up for yourself is an important thing that everyone needs to work on. And sometimes it's harder than others. And I think it's important to remember that it's not just sticking up for yourself of, yes, I can do this, but also sticking up for yourself of, no, I can't do this.
00:25:31
Speaker
Oh, that's a powerful lesson and a great example. One I can relate to. Yeah. of Sometimes you just power through. and I think that's even a thing probably in ah in a lot of places, like everyone does that, but but especially in ag, like it's just like, yeah, I grit, grit through it, you know, like just toughen up kind of thing. But yes, it's hard to say like, no, I need to step back.
00:25:51
Speaker
I need to take a break. Good one. Is your career, has it ended up how you expected? No, no. I had to think about that for a minute. No. um I think that I thought I was going to be kind of more Dr. Pole-esque, maybe James Harriot-esque, you know, going farm to farm, multiple farms in a day.
00:26:19
Speaker
I knew I was going to be checking cows and doing regular herd work in the mornings and then doing emergencies in the afternoon, but it turns out that I'm doing herd work in the very early mornings, and sometimes I do emergencies, but generally after my my regular herd checks, I spend the time working with people.
00:26:40
Speaker
I'm doing training, I'm doing records, I'm... having meetings with managers and owners. And and i do a lot of prevention. I'm trying to prevent things from happening or catch them when it's just a really small issue before it becomes a big issue.
00:26:58
Speaker
And um I didn't know that I would be spending so much time on that. And then on DairyKind, I think fits right into that. I didn't think I would spend so much time on that, but I do, and i love it. I'm glad that I do that. ah It's something that I didn't see coming, and I think it's also where the industry is evolving and moving towards is that heavier emphasis on prevention, and I think that that's really cool.
00:27:23
Speaker
And then, of course, I didn't see the social media coming. I didn't even have a smartphone in vet school, so I didn't. That I never saw coming. So what do you think it was that set you up for just being open-minded to opportunities or trying something or even the vulnerability, right? Like a lot of people are scared to put themselves on social, especially in agriculture, right? Because you you can get a lot of non-friendly folk as well. So what gave you the ability, i'm going to say, to go with the flow and take the opportunities as they come?
00:27:54
Speaker
I think my experiences in college were really formative for me in my career because i was doing a lot of stuff that I never even imagined I would do. And then I was having to go out and seek opportunities that...
00:28:10
Speaker
didn't just come to me because I didn't know the people, i didn't know the world. And i just kind of jumped head first in and made made a lot of great connections. Everybody I worked with was really kind and welcoming. And then they would say, hey, you should look into this or hey, you should look into that. you know The first dairy veterinarian I shadowed was because I was trying to get more veterinary experience. So I was working at the UC Davis surgical research center because it was veterinarian and and medical doctor focused. They were doing medical research, but they were doing it on sheep.
00:28:48
Speaker
And so I liked it because I got to work with the sheep and But then also it was very veterinary focus was good for my for my resume. That's what I needed to be able to apply to vet school.
00:28:59
Speaker
But then the head technician there, her daughter was in 4-H with another kid whose dad was a dairy veterinarian. And I was talking to her about how I wanted to go to vet school and I was exploring different veterinary careers. And she said, oh, I know someone.
00:29:16
Speaker
And I think everybody has some version of that exact story that it's it's really about who you know. And i think I just learned to be open to every opportunity that came my way because every time I tried something new, i was hugely surprised.
00:29:32
Speaker
I mean, even down to, I didn't shadow ah dog and cat veterinarian until I went to college. But I was so convinced that's what I wanted to do. And then in college, I shadowed this veterinarian, and I hated I was like, I'm stuck in this office. We're seeing appointments every 15 minutes. This is so stressful. i never get to see the sun.
00:29:53
Speaker
and And so you know you can be surprised in good ways and bad ways. But I think it's all good because you're learning from it. And you're learning about yourself each time. And you have to be open-minded Because you may get to a place that you never even knew existed and love it. That's what happened to me.
00:30:15
Speaker
So i think that I've just continued that spirit throughout my career. And it's been really cool to see where it takes me Yeah. I think it's being open to like the side quest may become a main quest, you know, yeah like you have a plan and it's okay to work the plan. But as you go through the journey, it's like, oh, maybe this, this fork over here is really where I'm supposed to be. And I think that can happen multiple times throughout your career, not just being young in college, but as you try new things and get new opportunities, get exposed to new people in different parts of the industry. So I think that's kind of a ah neat way to look at it.
00:30:50
Speaker
Okay, Michelle, what the hardest part of your job?
Balancing Social Media and Professional Life
00:30:54
Speaker
The hardest part of my job is probably the hours and the unpredictability. I would say as a dairy veterinarian, I'm pretty lucky.
00:31:03
Speaker
My job is more predictable than some aspects of veterinary medicine. Other veterinarians have a lot more unpredictability. My days generally follow the same course, but you just never know.
00:31:18
Speaker
and And that's a little bit hard. Luckily, i have a really supportive family, and my husband is a teacher, so he has more regular hours than I do, which is really great.
00:31:29
Speaker
But... The unpredictability is challenging and the hours, even on a predictable day, my hours ah generally have me waking up. Today i woke up at 3.15 in the morning. um But so it's a lot of very early mornings and long drives.
00:31:47
Speaker
and And so the schedule and the unpredictability are probably the most challenging parts. But worth it. Yeah. Yeah. They feel like you got to love it if you're getting up at 3 a.m. m Exactly. Awesome.
00:31:59
Speaker
Okay. So Michelle, let's talk about your online presence a little bit. What are some of the biggest challenges you face when speaking honestly about food and agriculture online? I think a lot of people think that the biggest challenge is negativity.
00:32:13
Speaker
i And I think that is a challenge for a lot of people. It doesn't really bother me, though. i just let it roll off. Most people that are being negative have already made up their minds or just hate agriculture in general. And I don't it has nothing to do with me. and I could be anybody and they would be negative towards it.
00:32:36
Speaker
So I don't take it personally. And, and that's a big piece of advice I have for people because I think that's what's helped me be successful. More challenging would be balancing it all because i started just on TikTok and I was doing a pretty good job there, but I was having a lot of people like, oh, well, I don't have a TikTok. Can you, can you go on other channels?
00:32:59
Speaker
And so then I went to Instagram and Facebook, which are linked, but I just repost my TikToks there, but then I wanted to expand that a little bit. So I tried to do some specific stuff just for those platforms.
00:33:12
Speaker
And then recently I started a YouTube. And so I think managing the different platforms is really challenging. i don't do a great job at it. I wish I was better at it, but that that's a big challenge.
00:33:25
Speaker
Makes sense. Yeah. It's hard to be in all places at once and be a content machine and be a you know bovine veterinarian at the same time and mom and all the things. Yeah. And I just do the best I can. And it's social media. I mean, it's whatever I can do is better than doing nothing. That's what I figure.
00:33:45
Speaker
ah I love that because I was just about to ask you advice you have for people who maybe feel like they want to do it, but are too scared or a little too shy or worried about some of that negativity. Yeah.
00:33:56
Speaker
Yeah, I think that if if you're interested in going for it you just go for it. It doesn't matter if you post once a week, once a month, um every day, if you're more picture focused, more video focused, whatever you're excited about doing, I think that's important too. Don't try to force yourself in a box that you don't fit in.
00:34:16
Speaker
And then pay attention to what people want to hear from you. I tried to do some trends early on, some kind of more trendy stuff because that's what people told me to do, and ah those videos all flopped.
00:34:29
Speaker
And then I did that educational stuff, or i did a quiz on is this a male or a female bovine, and that one got like 200,000 views, and it was like my fourth video I ever posted.
00:34:43
Speaker
And I realized, you know what, I think people just, they want to learn from me. And I think some some of that is me and and some of that is because I'm excited to teach. And I think that comes through. But then I also think some of that is that I'm a veterinarian and that's the place that I have in their minds is as an educator.
00:35:00
Speaker
And I'm happy to embrace that. So I think paying attention to what people want from you and doing something that you're passionate about and then not putting too much pressure on yourself. It it doesn't have to be perfect.
00:35:11
Speaker
It doesn't have to be every day. i took a break for like three months at one point and then came back and I lost some followers, but I came right back to it and it was fine. That was just what I needed to do in that moment for myself.
00:35:26
Speaker
And i don't regret that. And it all worked out fine. So I think that a lot of people are really paralyzed by imagining that they have to do it all and do it all perfectly. And you just don't.
00:35:38
Speaker
I think that applies not just to if you want to be an advocate, but life in general. Michelle, that's good advice. What is the most interesting question or comment or interaction you've had since being on social and talking about the dairy industry?
00:35:55
Speaker
Well, I guess I could go two directions with this. You could give us the good and the bad. um Well, how about the funny and the interesting? Ooh, love it. Yeah, let's do it. Okay, so I think I get a lot of very interesting comments and questions in the funny category that are just really unexpected to me, because And they're generally anatomical questions like, are we drinking cow pee?
00:36:28
Speaker
Where does the pee come from? Is that a boy or a girl? No, that can't be a boy because it doesn't have horns. so I mean, there's a lot of different things that people don't know about cows as mammals.
00:36:46
Speaker
and And I try to be really respectful about it because I don't know their history. I mean, this could be like a 10-year-old kid for all I know commenting this. But I get those are some examples of some very interesting comments that I get.
00:37:01
Speaker
And then the educational piece, I think this comes back to my very big point that we need to be better listening to the consumer. and better explaining.
00:37:12
Speaker
They bring up a lot of things that I never thought about. So one big common thread that I see is a lot of people are very concerned about cattle getting ear tags.
00:37:25
Speaker
ah They feel that it's an animal welfare issue and that it shouldn't be allowed and it's harmful and terrible.
00:37:36
Speaker
As someone sitting here wearing earrings, I find that so interesting. Yes. ah Yeah. And I think many people feel that way. And I think that it's very interesting because whether you put the plastic ear tags in or not, the RFID tags in cattle are required for a lot of regulatory things.
00:37:55
Speaker
So like when I brucellosis vaccinate, which is required, I have to put an ear tag in. And that's what the federal government says.
00:38:06
Speaker
So whether you like it or not as a consumer, this does not reflect the farmer being malicious or having poor animal welfare.
00:38:18
Speaker
That's it's a whole other issue because in many cases, ear tags are required. But also, I think it's a good point. Like, yeah, it probably does hurt, you know, so we should we should be open minded to these comments and and be learning from the points that other people bring up because there's a lot of things in agriculture that we do because we've always done them is what people will say. Well, that's we've always done it this way.
00:38:45
Speaker
But I can name a lot of cases where the way we've always done it has been proven to not be the right way. And we do things a lot better now than we did 100 years ago because we know better.
00:38:58
Speaker
We know more. And some of those changes are driven by the consumer bringing up good points. So I get a lot of really interesting comments of people concerned about different things about the animal's welfare or living situation or well-being in general.
00:39:16
Speaker
And i always really try to think critically about each of those and ask myself, well, how how can I explain this? And should I explain this? Love that.
00:39:27
Speaker
That is interesting. I love that you brought, like, I wouldn't have assumed tags. No. um All the things. So interesting. Yeah. Fascinating. Okay,
Future of Agriculture and Diversity
00:39:36
Speaker
Michelle. So at AFA, we always like to ask about hot takes.
00:39:40
Speaker
So this can be unconventional or bold opinions. And I am curious, what is a hot take you have about agriculture, leadership, the future of ag, can even be about agriculture advocacy?
00:39:52
Speaker
I believe that the future of agriculture is off the farm. Ooh, say more about that. I think that there are people out there that are not on farms, did not grow up in agriculture, that can come into agriculture and we should be bringing them in, like we talked about a little bit already.
00:40:13
Speaker
They are the future of agriculture. not just the people who grew up on farms. If we keep putting it all on the people that grew up on farms, we are going to dwindle away and die as an industry. there're There are just not enough people.
00:40:29
Speaker
So I believe that the future of agriculture is not on farms right now, and we need to bring them in. But conversely, I believe that there are people that grew up farms that
00:40:44
Speaker
that have a future off the farm and we can't be afraid of that. We can't be afraid of ag kids leaving the farm and not coming back. I hear that all the time that it's so sad that nobody wanted to come back and run the farm.
00:41:00
Speaker
That's okay because they're doing something out there and they have the chance to educate others about how they grew up. They can bring their knowledge from where they grew up two whatever their their industry is that they move into.
00:41:16
Speaker
Let them go be politicians. We need agriculture people that are politicians. Let them go be accountants. Let them go be welders. Let them go be whatever they are. We need people to leave the farm also and bring their agriculture knowledge from being on the farm out to the bigger world.
00:41:38
Speaker
So I really do believe that the future is off the farm. I think that there are a lot of industries most industries, I would argue, that we wouldn't talk about the way we talk about agriculture.
00:41:52
Speaker
I think that we say it's so sad that ag kids don't want to come back. And it's really terrible because there's nobody to run the farms because these kids grew up on the farms and they don't appreciate it. They left and there's no one for this farm to go to.
00:42:10
Speaker
Well, we don't say that about other industries. Nobody's looking at me as a veterinarian and saying you failed because your kids didn't also become veterinarians. We don't say that about you know any other industry, that it's somehow a failure that the kids did not come back and do exactly what their parents did.
00:42:30
Speaker
So why are we putting this all on the ag kids? I think it's great. If they're passionate about it and they want to come back and run the farm, that is great. And let them do that. But let them live out their passions in whatever way that is.
00:42:43
Speaker
And go find the people that are not in agriculture right now that have a passion for it. Because they're out there. i That was me. And bring them in. And I think if we were just more open, that we would have a stronger future.
00:42:56
Speaker
Oh, that's a hot take, Michelle, but I love it because I think it doesn't paint the future of agriculture as scary. It's just let's find the people that are passionate about food and ag.
00:43:07
Speaker
and make sure that they have a pathway, whether they grew up on a farm or they didn't. Because at the end of the day, we need know a strong, diverse background of people to build the future of ag because it is going to look different than where we've been. And i think that's the key to all of this, right? Because I think part of my stomach got a little like, ooh, when you started to say that, but it's because we want to pass on the tradition of agriculture.
00:43:31
Speaker
And there's a lot of these traditions that are both cultural and i think like you just kind of got some of it in your blood. And that, that doesn't mean that you have to come from a farm to, to have that and to pass it on. So love the hot take as a great place to end this, Michelle.
00:43:48
Speaker
I have loved this conversation. It has been so fun getting to know you. Now, if they were all about building bridges, so tell me where can people find and connect with you online and learn from you about the dairy industry?
00:44:01
Speaker
Thank you. You can find me on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube at Dairy Doc, different versions of that. But if you just search up Dairy Doc, you'll find me.
00:44:12
Speaker
And my website is michelleschack.com. Our Dairy Kind website, if you're interested in the training that we do, is dairykind.com. And people are always welcome to reach out to me on any of those channels.
00:44:24
Speaker
Awesome. Thank you so much, Michelle. It's been wonderful to learn from you. We have very much enjoyed having you on the Cultivating Leaders podcast. Thanks for listening to the Cultivating Leaders podcast brought to you by Agriculture Future of America.
00:44:37
Speaker
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