Abstract

Antibiotics are today an integral part of intensive animal production, and farm animals may act as important reservoirs of resistant genes in bacteria. The therapeutic and preventive use of antibiotics in intensive livestock production is closely linked to the animal housing and rearing conditions. The transmission dynamic of antibiotic resistance is complex and not fully understood, but still antibiotics should be used with cautiousness. The WHO has launched an action plan aiming for 'reduction in nontherapeutic use of antimicrobial medicines in animal health. Thus, the risk factors associated with intense production needs to be tackled in order enable animal production with minimal antibiotics usage. In contrast to most other concurrent commercial animal husbandry in Europe and in the world, organic livestock production today essentially complies with this position. It has been postulated that lower need and use of antibiotics in organic livestock production will diminish the risk of development of antibiotic resistance, and this has also been demonstrated in organic pigs and poultry. However, the differences between species and countries are large. Organic production is always certified according to rigorous standards, which means that transparency for consumers and authorities throughout the food chain should be guaranteed. This transparency may be fruitful in order to acquire knowledge and methods for combating the elevating problems of transmissions of antimicrobial resistance within the food production. In summary, organic animal husbandry essentially fulfils today the demands on restrictive use of antibiotics made by the WHO and by the European Parliament, for counteracting the development and spreading of antibiotic resistance. Knowledge dissemination between conventional and organic production may be important steps in the right direction. However, transition into organic production for the whole livestock sector would, on its own, only be part of a solution of the antibiotic resistance issue, because factors outside animal production, such as the use in humans, will be unaffected.

Keywords

antibiotic resistance; morbidity; animal husbandry; pig; poultry; dairy

Published in

Title: Professionals in food chains
ISBN: 978-90-8686-321-1, eISBN: 978-90-8686-869-8
Publisher: Wageningen Academic Publishers

Conference

14th Congress of the European-Society-for-Agricultural-and-Food-Ethics - Professionals in Food Chains: Ethics, Roles and Responsibilities, JUN 13-16, 2018, Vienna, AUSTRIA

SLU Authors

• Gunnarsson, Stefan

  • Department of Applied Animal Science and Welfare, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Other Health Sciences


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3920/978-90-8686-869-8_12

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/95656