Mrs Smith, who will attend her first council meeting in February, understood it was the first time a farmer had been appointed.
The council's role was to protect the public interest by ensuring veterinarians were fit and competent to practise. That was achieved through various statutory mechanisms.
It has seven members. Three are veterinarians, elected every three years by their peers, and three (including two lay members) are Government appointees. The remaining member is a veterinary educator.
Mrs Smith and her husband Blair, who have three children, run Newhaven Farms Ltd, at Five Forks, inland from Oamaru.
The couple were the winners of the 2012 national Ballance Farm Environment Awards and Mrs Smith was last year appointed an independent director on the board of the Red Meat Profit Partnership (RMPP).
She was looking forward to the veterinary council role. She did not know much about the position yet and expected to have ‘‘quite a lot of homework'' to do.
Surveys consistently showed that vets were among the most trusted advisers, if not the most trusted, in the agricultural industry, she said.
Farmers had a lot of respect for that industry and it was a privilege to be asked to join the council. It was also good to have a practical farming opinion around the table, she said.
It was probably not until Mrs Smith became involved in the Ballance Farm Environment Awards that she realised individual farming voices did ‘‘count for a lot''. As a farmer, it was important to be involved in such things, she said.
She has been enjoying her involvement with the RMPP, a red-meat sector and government collaboration designed to boost sheep and beef farmer productivity and profitability.
There were some ‘‘really good things'' coming from that in the new year, including a national standard industry approach to quality assurance.
One of her bugbears was all the duplication in the agricultural industry, she said.
