Breaking the Habit: Towards a Sustainable Minimum for Livestock Antibiotics

Avoiding an antibiotic overdose

Antibiotic use in livestock farming is declining. Following warning signs of growing antimicrobial resistance (AMR), the risk of severe negative socioeconomic and public health consequences triggered stricter regulations. Several European countries banned the use of certain antibiotic growth promotors (AGPs) during the 1990s and the EU saw a complete ban on all AGP use by 2006. Today, several countries across the globe have legislation in place to curb farm antibiotic use. The risk of antimicrobial resistance is a key driver for policy makers and industry players around the world to reduce the sub-therapeutic use of antibiotics.

No negative impact on farm results so far

In aiming for a reduction target, antibiotic use in the Dutch livestock sector decreased by 64% (2016). In recent years, this reduction was supported by a move towards slower growing chicken breeds in the broiler sector. Despite the reduction, the annual results of ‘conventional’ Dutch livestock farms show no negative impact on key farm performance indicators, e.g. financial results, animal health costs, feed efficiency, and mortality rates.

Moving towards a sustainable minimum

Then what is the sustainable minimum for antibiotics usage, to solve the actual problems at hand? In mainstream animal protein production, this is the carefully formulated answer to a complex equation of preventing antimicrobial resistance, maintaining efficiency in production, improving animal welfare, and satisfying consumer demand (see figure below).

Author: Karen Heuvelmans