As new data shows that the UK pig industry is close to its 2020 antibiotic target, an ambitious new four-year target has been announced, taking a comprehensive approach to this issue. ALISTAIR DRIVER report

In the use of drugs, the British pig industry was once considered the "bad boy" of the industry. It is not entirely unreasonable, because habitual daily use was too common in the past, resulting in an unnecessarily high use rate in the overall industry.

The situation today is very different-the industry is now considered a pioneer in documenting and reducing antibiotic use, both in British agriculture and on the global stage. But there is more that can be done.

All of this will be obvious when the latest antibiotic use data is released with the next set of four-year antibiotic targets (including a further 30% reduction in the pig industry).

Data from AHDB’s eMB-Pigs database shows that the average industry usage in the first six months of 2020 is 104 mg/kg population corrected unit (PCU), which means that the industry is still expected to achieve its 2020 99 mg/kg PCU The goal.

After the data in 2019 remained at 110 mg/kg PCU, this represents a welcome return to the downward trend. Analysis of the 2019 data shows that this is due to the increased use of tiamulin and lincosamide to treat swine dysentery peak last year, which highlights the continuing need (if any) to use antibiotics responsibly to protect pig health And benefits.

The latest data means that industry usage has dropped by 63% from the 2015 baseline data of 278 mg/kg PCU.

Equally important, the use of the highest priority extremely important antibiotic (HP-CIA) continues to decline and is now at a very low level. The average use of HP-CIA in 2019 was only 0.04 mg/kg PCU, while the 2015 baseline was 1 mg/kg PCU. Fluoroquinolones accounted for three-quarters of the 2019 figure, and the use of colistin was negligible ( 0.002 mg/PCU).

AHDB Animal Health and Welfare Acting Director Mandy Nevel said it was “very encouraging” to see the use of antibiotics declining, while NPA’s senior policy adviser Rebecca Veale said that this figure “shows that producers, veterinarians, and the wider industry are losing ground. Responsibility and reduce the use of antibiotics".

Many large pig companies and small independent farms have made tremendous progress along with their veterinarians, feed companies and other parts of the supply chain to improve the overall health of their pig herds and reduce their dependence on drugs.

Many companies now report low levels of usage, in some cases, reaching or close to single digits.

This means that, by definition, there are still some relatively high users, for whatever reason, the usage is much higher than the industry average.

This is one of the focal points of the new pig target set announced in a report by the RUMA-led Target Working Group II (TTF II) in a report in mid-November. The working group covers 10 British national livestock, poultry and fish sectors.

TTF II is composed of producers and veterinary experts from various departments. For pigs, they are Richard Lister, Chairman of NPA and Richard Pearson, former Chairman of the Pig Veterinary Association, and the AMU team of the Pig Health and Welfare Committee also played an important role in setting goals.

The overall goal is to further reduce overall usage by 30% by 2024, and the final figure will be confirmed when complete data for 2020 appear. But, for example, if the 2020 figure remains at 104mg/PCU, then the 2024 target will be 73mg/PCU—just a little more than a quarter of the 2015 figure.

Another goal is to maintain the HP-CIA level at or below the 2020 baseline level by 2024.

But the biggest difference between this set of goals and the preliminary TTF goals announced in 2017 is that they also emphasize some new non-digital goals.

High users: The most notable of these is to identify and support the goal of reducing what is considered a Persistent High User (PHU), with the goal of reducing the number of producers who use “significantly higher than the national average”.

PHU will be defined as the top 5% of antibiotic users in each major production category recorded by eMB, calculated using eMB-Pigs rolling data for the past four quarters, excluding boar breeds and gilt units. The definition will continue to be reviewed.

The top 10% of users in each category will be informed that they are at risk of being classified as a PHU within the eMB system.

The report emphasizes the need to support those who are identified as PHU-a mixture of carrots and sticks.

A plan will be implemented to support and encourage PHU's efforts to reduce the use of antibiotics-the PHWC AMU team has developed templates and guidelines for producers' antibiotic reduction plans.

In the future, support may also be provided under the pig health and welfare channel, and the upcoming consultation on the red tractor standard will propose a new requirement for guaranteed farms identified as PHU to implement a reduction plan.

Water management: The target is formulated in the context of the new EU regulations, which will prohibit the collective preventive use of antibiotics and limit the use in feed.

Therefore, the new target encourages the application of antibiotics from the feed to the water to provide "more accurate targeting and thus more responsible use". Many companies have already practiced this. I hope again that grant funds can be obtained under this channel to help producers to convert.

The report emphasizes that ultimately, the drug management model depends on the clinical decision of the veterinarian at the time, and any large-scale switch to water-based drugs is complicated by the wet feeding system, which is operated by approximately 30% of manufacturers and will limit absorption Range.

Weaning piglet plan: The 2022 ban on the use of therapeutic zinc oxide in piglet diets is also taken into consideration. The goal is to develop a best practice plan for the management of weaned piglets in response to the upcoming ban.

Industry stakeholders, including AHDB, veterinarians and producers, will develop a plan, but the report pointed out that given that the risk factors for post-weaning diarrhea vary from farm to farm, a specific unit review of weaning piglet management is required. support me.

"The overall goal is to prevent the removal of zinc oxide from becoming an important driving factor in the swine industry to increase the use of antibiotics," the report points out.

Hope that the government will allocate funds to support producers.

Training: Current training opportunities will be reviewed to develop new resources and encourage increased training in responsible antibiotic use and understanding of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) throughout the pig industry.

Red Tractor's standard consultation will include a proposed new standard that requires at least one person responsible for overseeing the unit's drug use to receive training in responsible drug use.

eMB data submission: There will be a goal to maintain or increase accurate antibiotic use data submission for all pig producers (including non-guaranteed units) through eMB-Pigs before the deadline.

Monitoring the impact: The impact of reducing antibiotic use on pig health and welfare will be monitored by encouraging the use of reliable data sources (such as the AHDB Pig Health Program), in part to quickly determine any negative impact of reducing antibiotic use.

"The desire to reduce the use of antibiotics must not come at the ultimate cost of sacrificing the health and welfare of pigs," the report points out.

It will continue to monitor AMR related to the pig industry.

The Goal Task Force II reported on the progress of the 2020 goals for the 10 livestock, poultry and fisheries sectors in the UK, and set a new four-year goal for each sector.

Although progress is being made in all sectors, such as the poultry sector achieving significant reductions, the report highlights how the pig sector is leading the way in documenting and reducing antibiotic use.

For example, although the eMB-Pigs database now covers 95% of slaughtered pigs, there is a lack of data records elsewhere, especially in the cattle and sheep sector.

A new ruminant AHDB Medical Center has just begun to develop, and its goal is to obtain data from 95% of the dairy herd, 50% of the calf breeding unit, and only 10% of the beef and dairy herd by 2024.

The report clearly shows that where comprehensive records are performed, such as pigs, greater progress has been made in achieving goals.

The overall usage methods of other departments include:

Beef and sheep-there is no reduction target.

Laying hens-keep the throughput of chickens below 1%.

Broilers-Keep the dosage below 25mg/PCU.

Salmon-up to 5mg/kg per year.

This co-exists with non-digital goals, including disease prevention for ruminants, herd/chicken health planning, and a new "farm veterinary champion" network.

Editor of LBM titles Pig World and Farm Business and group editor of Agronomist and Arable Farmer. Webmaster of the National Pig Raising Association. Served as a political editor in "Farmers Guardian" for many years, and also worked in "Farmers Weekly". Occasional agricultural media expert. He grew up on a farm in Leicestershire and now works in a shed in Oxfordshire Gardens. A big fan of Leicester City and the Leicester Tigers. The occasional cricket player.

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