ACHIEVING RESPONSIBLE FARM ANTIBIOTIC USE THROUGH IMPROVING ANIMAL HEALTH AND WELFARE IN PIG AND POULTRY PRODUCTION

“To ensure that the new EU Regulations on farm antibiotics are implemented in full, ending all forms of routine antibiotic use, and in particular ending the use of antibiotics to compensate for inadequate husbandry and poor hygiene, new targeted policies are now needed.”

On 28 January 2022, the EU will ban all forms of routine farm antibiotic use, including prophylactic group treatments. Using antibiotics to compensate for inadequate husbandry or poor hygiene will also become illegal.
This is a major step forward for more responsible and sustainable antibiotic use in European
farming. If properly implemented, it should lead to a large reduction in farm antibiotic use, help
tackle the serious crisis of antibiotic resistance, and protect human and animal health.
Unfortunately, there are real concerns that full compliance with the new legislation will not be
achieved and that some key aspects may not be implemented in practice. This is because there
is very limited evidence that Europe is moving away from highly intensive livestock farming
systems, which often have poor hygiene, high levels of disease and excessive antibiotic use, and
towards livestock farming systems which promote good animal health and welfare, low levels of
stress and much lower levels of antibiotic use.
Therefore, while prophylactic group treatments with antibiotics are likely to end after 28 January
2022, or at least be greatly reduced, it now seems inevitable that antibiotics will continue to be
used, in breach of the new legislation, to prop up farming systems with inadequate husbandry
and suboptimal animal health. On some farms it seems likely that routine antibiotic use will
continue.

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