Safe from the farm to your table

Last winter, Wisconsin was shivering in the grasp of a polar vortex that brought biting winds and sub-zero temperatures. Most people bundled up and stayed indoors.

Stacy Chic, on the other hand, was marching through a farm field to test a herd of dairy cows for tuberculosis.

“That was pretty miserable,” she recalled with a laugh. “And then we had to trace every animal that moved off of that premises in the last five years. That’s a matter of knowing what animals they sent out and what markets they sent them to, and then where they may have been sold from there. We track all of that so we can make sure that those types of diseases stay contained.”

It’s all part of a (chilly) day’s work for an animal health inspector.

Chic, a UWM alum, holds that role in Wisconsin’s Department of Agriculture, where she is responsible for overseeing the health of livestock in southeastern Wisconsin. That includes traditional farm animals like cows and sheep, but also extends to fish hatcheries and deer farms.

UWM biology alum Stacy Chic is an animal health inspector for the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture. Photo courtesy of Stacy Chic.

Her job is a busy one because there are so many moving parts in the animal agriculture industry.

“The people at home who don’t work in agriculture probably don’t even realize how a cow moves from the farm to your table,” she said. “Folks raise the animal on the farm, and then they generally hire an animal trucker to transport those animals and take them to an animal market. There they’re purchased to then be shipped off to a processing plant where they become dinner.”

At every step in that process, there are regulations and paperwork – lots and lots of paperwork.

“We regulate the animal truckers. They need to keep records for all of those animals who come off the farm and come to the market,” Chic said. “Then we regulate the animal dealers who are at the market doing the buying and the selling of the animals. … We inspect both at dealer locations and the market locations to make sure that the facilities meet the requirements for animal handling and animal health.”

If there is an outbreak of disease – like the tuberculosis in the cattle herd last winter – Chic is also responsible for helping to contain it. She regularly assists the Department of Agriculture’s veterinarians in the field, helping test animals for disease, tracking its spread, and, if necessary, euthanizing infected animals.

In 2015, for instance, Chic was racing to contain the spread of avian flu in Wisconsin.

“We were suiting up in our full Tyvek suits to go out and work with the producers to make sure that it was all contained, that we stayed healthy, and that consumers stayed healthy,” she recalled. “(At the time), we weren’t sure if it could cross over into humans – we call those zoonotic diseases.”

Not only did Chic work with the infected flocks, but she and her colleagues also tested poultry in a wide radius around outbreak areas to ensure the disease hadn’t spread.

“Then we provided education so people knew what sort of symptoms to look for in their birds to prevent the spread of avian flu – and we did,” she said.

Chic loves her job and takes pride in it, but she laughs when she’s asked about her background in farming: She has none.

“I never even knew this job existed when I was a kid. I think growing up, I always knew that I liked animals and I liked the outdoors,” she said.

Chic grew up in the outer suburbs of Milwaukee, and she attended UWM because the school was close and affordable. There, she majored in biological sciences and conservation science, earning a BS in 1997. While still at UWM, she began working with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture’s gypsy moth program, monitoring the spread of the invasive species. She joined the Department full-time shortly after graduating as a nursery inspector, regulating Wisconsin’s trees to control disease and pests.

After taking some time off to raise her family, Chic rejoined the department in 2014, this time as an animal health inspector.

The job isn’t just tracking animal movements and testing for disease. Chic enjoys working with kids in 4H programs to teach them about animal health and safety, and she’s also responsible for tracking exotic and regulated animals in Wisconsin’s pet trade – in one case she had to investigate the import of some capuchin monkeys.

“I get to do so many different things, and I really appreciate having a job that’s not mundane,” she said. “I really love working with animals. Some of the really fun parts of the job are where I get to go out and assist the vets with the actual animal work.”

Chic says that her job has given her a sense of security in her food. She’s literally seen how the sausage gets made.

“I think it’s made me more confident about our food supply. I never would have known before taking this position how much time and work and traceability goes into making sure that we have a handle on where our food is coming from,” she said.

By Sarah Vickery, College of Letters & Science