Document type: Report of the European Public Health Alliance (EPHA)
Author: Cóilín Nunan
Preview: On 28 January 2022, the EU [banned] all forms of routine farm antibiotic use, including prophylactic group treatments. Using antibiotics to compensate for inadequate husbandry or poor hygiene [has] also become illegal. [...]Data published by the European Medicines Agency show that huge differences in the levels of farm antibiotic use currently exist between different European countries, despite significant reductions in use having occurred in many countries over the past decade.
The lowest European users, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, generally have higher minimum statutory animal-welfare standards that contribute to their ability to minimize routine antibiotic use. In these countries, around 90% of antibiotics are administered as individual treatments to sick animals.
More average users, such as large producers France and Germany, have antibiotic usage levels about 5-10 times higher per livestock unit than the lowest users, demonstrating how much further their use can be cut. The highest users, which include large producers such as Poland, Italy and Spain, still have antibiotic usage levels which are 10-20 times higher per livestock unit than the lowest users. In average and above-average using countries, the vast majority of farm antibiotics (over 75%) are administered as group treatments, because antibiotic use is less targeted and often aimed at controlling persistent disease problems. [...]A major reason why so many countries still have such excessive farm antibiotic use and significant animal-health problems is because of a decades-long commitment from many governments and the EU itself to increasing farm productivity and delivering cheap meat and dairy products. [...]Tackling the antibiotic-resistance crisis means that it is essential that the new EU legislation is fully implemented, and the claimed commitments from policy makers toimproving animal health and welfare are realised. Farming systems and husbandry practices aimed solely at increasing productivity, and which cannot deliver good animal health and low levels of antibiotic use, must be phased out.
Plan of the Recommendations section
Policies and targets for antibiotic use and data collection:
- Low levels of farm antibiotic use
- Most antibiotic use should be for individual treatments.
- Antibiotic-use data should be collected by species and by farming system.
- Restrictions on highest-priority critically important antibiotics.
Numerous husbandry factors can contribute to antibiotic use, but some of the key ones requiring action that have been identified in this report are:
- Later weaning in piglets
- Use appropriate breeds
- Improve hygiene, reduce indoor stocking density and provide proper enrichment.
- Provide access to the outdoors.
- Include sufficient fiber in diets.
- Ban tail docking of piglets.
Report mentioned in an article published in PLOS Global Public Health on February 1, 2023: Global trends in antimicrobial use in food-producing animals: 2020 to 2030 which was itself reported in Nature on 6 February 2023: Antibiotic use in farming set to soar despite drug-resistance fears
