Last year, ForFarmers partnered with the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, to deliver a series of producer workshops designed to directly support the ambitions of the Pig Industry Antibiotic Stewardship Programme to reduce the UK AM medication from a baseline of 263.5mg/PCU in 2015 to 99mg/PCU in 2020.
The workshops provided practical advice to farmers on strategies to improve health thereby reducing the use of AM medication including management advice, nutritional strategies, the use of organic acid complexes and improving water quality. By the end of 2018, ForFarmers had reduced in-feed medication in across their pig diets by a further 27%, following on from the initial reduction achieved in 2016 of 36%.
Furthermore, ForFarmers has given specific focus to the nutrition and management of piglets at the time of weaning (removal from the sow). A number of factors contribute to the disturbance of gut microbiota, often resulting the onset of Post weaning diarrhea (PWD) and subsequent high use of medication. With nutritional innovations and the use of organic acids, ForFarmers has pioneered approaches to support improvements in gut health reducing the use of AM medication during this phase whilst reducing reliance on Zinc and high dietary copper levels.
Trials demonstrated that the same performance could be achieved when applying this approach in the absence of ZnO without any adverse incidence of PWD. This concept will be further developed and implemented in 2019 as part of a health concept in partnership with veterinarians and pig farmers.
Chris Jenkins comments: “The success we’ve seen so far has only been achieved by working in close partnership with our farmers, veterinarians, abattoirs and retailers. Our progress to date is just the start. Nutrition plays a key role in addressing the challenge of AMR and by leveraging the learnings from our ForFarmers colleagues on the continent who have already risen to this challenge, we’re in a great position to support the industry on this journey.”