Antibiotic data for over 1.2m pigs has already been contributed by pig producers to the British pig industry’s new on-line medicine book which was launched just two months ago.
“This represents nearly a third of the national growing and finishing herd and shows outstanding progress in the sector’s commitment to record, benchmark and control its use of antibiotics,” said the National Pig Association’s Dr Georgina Crayford, who leads the industry’s antibiotic stewardship programme.
She also said that the levy-funded book is the most important strand of the stewardship programme, adding that it will allow the industry to capture and collate accurate antibiotic-use data, followed by the benchmarking of each farm’s antibiotic use against other farms of a similar type.
“Recognising and addressing society’s concerns about antimicrobial resistance is one of the most important challenges the pig industry has ever faced and collecting accurate data on current use is pivotal to the industry stewardship programme,” said Dr Crayford (pictured above).
Other programme actions include:
- extending education in effective disease control strategies, and
- promoting veterinary prescribing principles to strictly limit the use of antibiotics of critical importance to human health.